Our Greater Good
by KingYo HanaBi
Summary: A story where Harry is raised with the best parents a boy could ask for, but still grows up to be a desperately lonely child.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Fic is also posted on AO3 under my other pen name Felled_and_Fallen. The AO3 version has some added art and is also updated more frequently. Fair warning, the numbering systems for the chapters are different.

 **Disclaimer:** Anything that seems even remotely familiar probably isn't mine.

* * *

 **Prologue**

Harry had no friends to call his own.

True, he had two loving parents that made sure he never wanted for anything and showered him with affection, but a parent is not the same thing as a friend.

The few times he'd attempted to rectify this problem by approaching the Muggle children in town were, to put it lightly, disastrous. These children had lived together in the same small town for their whole lives and had already developed cliques. Cliques that outsiders like Harry could not hope to join.

Part of the reason for that was of course his family's reputation.

Harry's family lived in a stately manor on a wooded hill overlooking the town, and the few times his family had ventured out of their home were occasions that invited much speculation and scrutiny. His parents were young, beautiful, and obviously wealthy – seeing as they could afford to buy and renovate such a large manor house – and people invented much gossip to account for why they would want to live in such a sleepy, rural town as theirs.

His parents never minded the gossip, their faces unflappable and always politely smiling, but Harry found all the attention very hard to ignore.

After one especially trying day, Harry finally confronted his parents and asked them how they could be so apathetic. Earlier that day, he'd attempted to join a ball game with a group of boys, only for the boys to jeer and laugh him right out of the park. The jeers were based on things they could have only learned from their parents, who apparently all had less than complimentary things to say about his family and their money.

"People will believe what they want to believe. Nothing we say is going to change that." His mother stroked his cheek, which was red and sensitive from his tears. "The best we can do is smile." She demonstrated a small one for his benefit and Harry mimicked her with a wobbly one of his own. "Those who'd think the worst of us would know we're unfazed by their whispers." And the green fire of her eyes made Harry's smile grow, feeding on her confidence.

"And as for the others," His father drawled from his place on the other side of Harry's bed, "you'd be surprised by how easily people are taken in by a friendly face." And the wicked gleam in his red-tinged brown eyes was just as heartening.

His father, of course, didn't want his family becoming friends with Muggles. To him, presenting the public with every appearance of genial civility was only good strategy.

"Why invite trouble?" He'd say, lips quirked sardonically.

His mother would only a share a secretive grin with Harry, eyeing all the Muggle appliances in the kitchen. "For a man with such strong opinions..."

"Well, no one would deny the benefits of Muggle innovation," his father would counter, bringing his coffee mug to his now pursed lips. The Muggle coffee maker just stared accusingly from its earned spot on the kitchen counter.

Harry had learned early on that his parents were very different people, their opinions on Muggles being only one of the differences between them. His parents did agree that he had to form his own opinions on the matter, however, and whether or not he'd adopt his father's stance – that Muggles were only tolerable because of their potential usefulness – or his mother's – that they were no different from wizards where it counts – his choice was ultimately his own.

Harry didn't know what to feel about Muggles. But he did know that the bad he encountered wasn't due to any inherent Muggle qualities. Wizarding children could be just as cruel. But even so, this knowledge didn't stop Harry from feeling unbearably lonely after each overture of friendship was thrown back in his face.

His father thought this was just proof that nothing good would come of associating with such pedestrian Muggles. This did not bring Harry much comfort.

His mother would bring him to her lap and whisper in his ear that someday he'd meet someone just as lonely as he was, and on that day he'd find himself the truest of friends. His parents would then share a look over his head that he couldn't hope to interpret, but was filled with undeniable warmth. A warmth Harry could only dream of sharing with someone else someday.

Harry would rub his head against his mother's silky black hair and nod, but inwardly he wondered whether that day would ever come.

Two months later, an owl arrived bearing a letter from Hogwarts.


	2. Chapter 2

**Gringotts**

* * *

Harry had been to Diagon Alley a handful of times accompanying his parents on their errands, but there was something about going to Diagon Alley to pick up his Hogwarts supplies that made this trip seem as if it was his very first time. Looking at the alley with new eyes, Harry practically vibrated with energy. Even the man at the Leaky Cauldron had seen fit to comment upon seeing Harry dance in place with impatience behind his parents.

"Excited about going to Hogwarts, eh?" he'd chuckled.

His father nodded and wrapped his arm around Harry's shoulders. This movement served two purposes. One, it established him as the proud father in the eyes of the Leaky bartender and two, it kept Harry still as he led the family out back to Diagon Alley's brick wall entrance.

"Where are we going first?" Harry had asked, craning his head to meet his father's gaze as his father tapped his wand along the bricks.

"Gringotts."

Harry slumped a little but nodded as they walked through the newly formed archway in the brick.

His mother laughed as she ran her hand comfortingly down his back. "Harry, there's plenty of time to both get your supplies and explore the alley."

Harry wasn't sure he agreed with her as they followed the goblin to their family vault.

After the goblin sealed them in, Harry's father opened a pouch to start withdrawing coins. Harry now knew that the pouch was charmed, but as a child, he'd always gasped in amazement at how the pouch never seemed to get any larger no matter what was put inside.

Turning to his mother, he watched as she started browsing the chests and cabinets at the end of the vault that contained his parents' non-monetary valuables.

Beckoning him over, she whispered _§Open§_ to one of the chests. It unlocked with a near silent click, and his mother kneeled before it to carefully examine its contents.

Harry looked as well, eyes round at the treasures inside. "Mum, what is this?"

"Your father and I thought it'd be a good idea for you to take this with you to Hogwarts." She held up a white and gold watch. The place where the watch face was supposed to be was covered by a white gold case inscribed with gold runes and intricate deer, dragons, and snakes that peeked in out of the scrollwork. In the center was a large, stylized letter H.

His mother took his arm and carefully secured the watch to his wrist. She motioned him to open the locket-like case and look at the watch itself. Harry popped it open to see a watch with three gold hands of descending lengths all pointing to the words _Doing Errands_. There were other words encircling the edge of the watch, from simple ones like _Studying_ and _Eating_ , to silly-sounding ones like _Brooding_. Even as he watched, the longest hand was veering slowly towards the word _Scheming_ , with the second and third longest approaching the words _Family Bonding_. Harry tracked the movement of the hands with a sense of wonder. He'd heard of such things before but they were usually in the form of antique family clocks that never left the ancestral home, as they always needed to stay connected to a source of constant family magic in order to accurately place each member of the family.

Looking up to see his mother's growing smile, she told him to say the word _§mirror§_. Dutifully following her instruction, he watched in amazement as the watch face lifted to reveal a circular piece of glass.

"It's a two-way mirror," his mother said, voice warm. "This way you can contact us whenever you wish. We had it made when you were younger to give to you as a gift for when you left for Hogwarts."

Harry had to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat. Closing the watch case, Harry threw his arms around his mother in a hug. His mother returned the embrace and after a moment of quiet mother-son tenderness, she lifted him up onto her hip and closed the chest behind her with another faint hiss of parseltongue.

"MUM! Put me down!" Harry squealed indignantly, laughing in spite of himself.

"Nope, nope. You have to let a mother baby her son just a little bit. Soon enough you're going to be spending your time with friends all year long, and then where will I be?"

Harry huffed into his mother's neck but felt pleased that his mother believed he could make friends so quickly. "I'd never forget you and dad," he mumbled, ears flaming red.

"Did you hear that Tom?" His mother called, swinging him around and heading towards his father, who'd been waiting this whole time with the goblin at the vault entrance. "Your son won't forget his dear old dad so easily."

"I should hope not," His father sniffed. "I spent quite a lot of time raising him. I would hate to see all that effort wasted." He softened the words with a smile and picked Harry up out of his mother's arms to place him back on the ground. Taking Harry's hand, he led his family out of the vault.


	3. Chapter 3

**More Diagon Alley + One Encounter**

* * *

Flourish and Blotts' was as magical a place as ever and Harry had to restrain himself from fillings his arms with books that weren't on his required list.

His father had of course made note of the books Harry had lingered over and discretely vetted and bought the ones he'd deemed suitable, all without telling his son. (Harry noticed anyway, as per usual.) The ones he hadn't bought were either already a part of the family collection, inferior to the books of a similar topic in the family collection, or just plain drivel. Harry hasn't yet mastered the art of discerning what is and isn't drivel, but his mother assured him it was a rather pompous and unnecessary trait to have.

After buying his texts, Harry begged his parents to stop at the Quidditch supply shop. His mother was only too happy to agree, and they both pressed their faces to the window to dreamily gaze at the new Nimbus model on display. His father, of course, reminded them that Harry's old Nimbus was perfectly serviceable and that his mother still had her own broom, which was custom designed and doubtlessly faster than anything now on the market.

"Tom you'll never understand. People like me and Harry live for these new arrivals!" She'd raised her hand dramatically at the new arrival in question to get her point across, but his father remained unmoved.

"Come along, Harry. I believe the apothecary is right over there."

Harry giggled as his father ushered him away from his now squawking mother.

* * *

It was at Madame Malkin's Robes for All Occasions that Harry had his first opportunity to make a new friend since receiving his Hogwarts letter.

And like all opportunities previous to this encounter, it did not end well.

His father had gone to the stationery store next door, leaving him and his mother to his fitting, when Harry realized he was being stared at by the blonde boy who was being fitted for black robes next to him.

"Hogwarts too?" The blonde asked, his grey eyes darting from Harry to his mother curiously.

"Yes," he said quickly, shooting for casual and hitting somewhere between shaky and panicky.

His mother put a hand over her mouth politely, but he knew she was using it to hide a smile over her son's shyness. A shyness she found absolutely precious. Harry was so busy suppressing his blush that he almost missed the boy's next words.

"My name's Draco Malfoy. What's yours?"

"Harrison Reed." Harry then remembered his manners and introduced his mother beside him. "This is my mother, Harriet Jameson-Reed."

Malfoy's eyebrows lowered slowly. "Reed? That doesn't sound like any wizarding family I've ever heard of." His voice was growing more imperious with every word, and his once curious expression was now flatly disgusted.

"That's because it isn't," Harry said point-blank, voice wooden. He already knew where this was headed, and inwardly mourned this latest failure.

Malfoy's lips had just curled into a sneer when the smooth, resonant tones of Harry's mother cut into the thick tension between them.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you that it's gauche to question a person's blood status on the first meeting?" His mother raised one tapered brow, and Harry watched Malfoy flush with chagrin. "How terribly rude of you, especially since your father has worked so hard to improve your family's good name after this Voldemort unpleasantness."

Madam Malkin looked almost faint at his mother's words, and Harry nearly wondered why before he remembered that the rest of the Wizarding society still had trouble uttering Voldemort's name, even eleven years after his fall.

Harry had no such trouble, but that's mostly due to his father's lectures on the subject. "Dead fools hellbent on self-destruction deserve no respect, Harry, and I refuse to allow my son to say something as infantile as You-Know-Who."

Malfoy looked just as shocked as Madam Malkin and didn't look as if he could come up with an appropriate retort, either.

Harry's mother winked at her son as they paid for his robes, and as they left he could see Malfoy staring after them in humiliated rage.

* * *

Harry was almost worried about his father's reaction to him and his mother making an enemy of the Malfoy scion, but he needn't have bothered. His father had only given his mother an approving glance and said, "Some enemies are unavoidable. A man with no enemies is a fool." At Harry's wince, his father gentled his words. "Indeed, sometimes making an enemy of someone is the preferable outcome. At least then, you both know where you stand."

Harry turned the words over in his head carefully, but as they headed to Ollivander's he could only wish that he could make a friend instead.


	4. Chapter 4

**Ollivander's**

* * *

Ollivander's Wand Shop was as dusty as the storefront suggested, and Harry stood bemusedly with his parents as a pale old man with even paler, moon-bright eyes came forward to greet them.

"It's rare that I get new faces in my shop." He stared from Harry's parents to Harry slowly. Harry noticed that his gaze lingered on his father's face the longest. "Did you purchase your wand from a different proprietor? Someone on the continent perhaps?"

"Yes, our wands are of foreign make," His mother replied with serene green eyes. She'd dipped her head slightly at the word foreign, as if apologetic that they hadn't bought their wands from a proper British wand maker.

"Very foreign." His father's slow smile seemed to disturb Mr. Ollivander, who then turned his eerily bright eyes to consider Harry, who had been shyly watching the interaction.

Harry nervously tried to flatten his cowlick-y brown hair as the stare lengthened past the point of politeness.

Suddenly snapping his fingers, Ollivander summoned a tape measurer that promptly began to wrap itself around Harry's head. Ollivander then proceeded to ignore the tape measurer entirely to pull a box from the towering shelves behind him.

Harry turned his wrapped head to give his parents a bewildered look, but their amused expressions made it clear that Ollivander's eccentrics were just part and parcel of the experience.

* * *

Harry tried wand after wand, but each failure seemed to frustrate him just as much as it excited Mr. Ollivander.

"A tricky customer then!" Ollivander's voice, now cheery with enthusiasm, echoed from the back of the shop as he looked for what seemed to be a specific wand.

Harry's father was now sitting in an old velvet chair, perfectly poised, and Harry's mother was perched lazily on its arm. Harry envied them their relaxed patience. He was practically twitching with anxiety in comparison.

"Here it is." Harry gave a sigh of relief as Ollivander finally emerged with a cobweb covered box in one hand. He grandly opened the box to present Harry with a wand that looked almost no different from the others he had tried. "Go on, give it a wave."

Harry picked it up gingerly in his hands, but knew immediately from the rush of heat that rose up his arm that this was the one. Giving it an excited wave, he watched a flourish of gold sparks erupt from the tip. He turned to beam at his parents under the gentle rainfall of golden lights. His mother clapping with pride in her eyes and his father's small smile was enough to warm the rest of Harry's body with a flush of joy.

"Eleven inches, holly, with phoenix feather core. Nice and supple." Ollivander gave a satisfied nod, and then seemed to revert to his earlier eerie solemness. "And brother wand to the wand of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."

* * *

Harry's parents reassured Harry as they apparated home that he needn't fret about people's reactions to him owning a wand with connections to Lord Voldemort.

"Voldemort might still cast a long shadow over wizarding Britain, but his influence will die just like anything else."

Just like how Voldemort died in the end, actually. Harry's parents had at this point shared a laugh at Voldemort's delusions of immortality.

Harry felt better after talking with his parents, but he couldn't help remaining a little disheartened. Any new friends he might make could not be expected to be as fearless and accepting as his parents, and any connection to the Dark Lord would not go over well.

Trying to bury these worries, he fell into a restless sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Happy Birthday, Harry**

* * *

Harry watched the sun rise over the mountains, high up on the seat of his mother's lap as she flew them over the countryside. It was a yearly tradition for them to watch the sunrise together on his birthday. And like every year, the sight had left him breathless with awe and wonder.

He spent the rest of the morning playing a one-on-one seeker game with his mother. They spent hours flying all over the expansive field behind their house, chasing after the golden snitch. He lost more often than not because his mother never held back, but the easy joy of flying more than made up for it.

His father always said his mother was made to fly through the air, head in the clouds, and often lamented the fact that Harry had turned out to be just as fly-crazy as his mother.

His mother even lets him practice diving, which was something she'd always forbid him from trying, no matter how much he pleaded.

"I figure you're old enough now," she said as they landed, unconcerned of the chaotic mess that had become of her usually perfectly styled black locks. "I started diving when I was about your age."

"Really?" They were both walking back up to the house now and he could see his father further up ahead, sitting in a wrought-iron chair with a full tea service on the table in front of him. He'd just closed his book to stand and greet them.

"Yep. It was my first time on a broom too."

"Weren't you scared?"

"Nah." She gave Harry a grin as she swung her broom onto her shoulder.

"It was glorious."

* * *

The afternoon was spent with his father, playing with his newly acquired wand. His father reminded him gently that they weren't "playing." He was being taught to channel his magic using the wand as an extension of his own body. It was a fundamental skill of wand magic that most children neglected to consider before their first classes at Hogwarts. Even pureblood children were often too susceptible to the belief that the wand was the instrument of power, and not just a tool to more precisely control their magic.

His father then proceeded to demonstrate by conjuring enormously large, shimmering bubbles, to Harry's extreme delight.

His father waited patiently for a moment before saying, voice amused, "The goal of this exercise isn't to pop them, Harry."

Harry froze guiltily in place. His finger was already outstretched and was inches away from one of the bubbles, about to do just that.

"I want you to try to conjure some bubbles of your own." His father banished the shimmering spheres with a wave of his wand."Conjuring isn't particularly difficult since the results aren't as permanent as transfigurations. You can't create something from nothing, even with magic, so conjurations are essentially illusions fueled by imagination and given form by willful use of magic. But since you aren't making something from a tangible material, conjurations aren't meant to be sustainable creations."

He paused when he noticed Harry's preoccupied grip on his wand. The young boy's body was rigid with tension.

Harry had never used a wand before. Unlike many other wizarding parents, his parents had refrained from giving him trainer wands as a young child because they believed an early introduction to wands crippled your ability to do magic without one.

His father had used his magic indiscriminately as a child and was just as powerful without a wand as he was with. And his mother's wandless magic, while rarely used, seemed filled with limitless potential as she often performed feats even his father would be hard pressed to explain.

Harry's magic when it manifested was always more hit or miss. When he was younger he'd often burst into frustrated tears after every magical failure. It was another blow to his confidence that he just didn't need.

He no longer had such a complex. His father had since calmly explained to him that it wasn't that Harry was incapable, he just lacked control. He'd inherited his mother's more volatile magic, which had taken his mother years to tame and harness the power of.

His father had also wryly added that half of the things his mother did weren't even intentional in the first place, so she wasn't a very good model of comparison. Harry remembered laughing in spite of himself at that, his hands scrubbing the tears from his face.

Thinking about that conversation now, Harry took a deep breath and pictured a small bubble. Perfectly round and floating above the palm of his hand. Raising his wand, he tried to focus on that well of warmth, life, and power inside of him. This was the core of his magic that his father always told him to feel for. Giving his wand a wave, he felt a thin string of power trail from that core, down his right arm, and into his wand.

"Harry, open your eyes."

He hadn't even realized he'd closed them. His moment of serenity suddenly leaving him, Harry anxiously opened one eye to peek at the space in front of him.

And there it was. A small perfectly round bubble, shimmering in the afternoon light, floating in front of his face.

* * *

The dinner table was laden with all of his favorite foods. His mother had spent the whole afternoon cooking, and as he and his father finished the last of the Cornish beef pasties - him with his hands and his father with a knife and fork - his mother unveiled her real masterpiece.

It was a three layer chocolate cake with exactly eleven candles proclaiming _Happy 11th Birthday Harry_ in the kind of flowing, graceful script his mother would find impossible without magic.

His mother levitated the cake to the table and his father leaned over to pinch the wick of each candle to life.

"Make a wish, Harry!" His parent's candle lit faces were also aglow with love.

Harry closed his eyes, blew out the candles, and wished for a friend to join his family in celebrating his birthday next year. It was the one thing that would make this otherwise perfect day complete.


	6. Chapter 6

**King's Cross**

* * *

Tom could only sigh as his wife teasingly wiggled her car keys in his face. There was no helping it, he knew, but that didn't stop him from resenting the necessity of it. For a wizard accustomed to near instantaneous transportation, Muggle automated vehicles were almost unbearably primitive in comparison. Transportation was one of the few sectors where the Wizarding world had an edge over their Muggle counterparts, and he was loath to forgo an established Wizarding practice for something both Muggle and inefficient.

But they had never been to this King's Cross before, and while he could apparate fine on coordinates alone, side apparating with two others was another story.

He moved the triumphantly jangling keys away from his face with one finger. "Fine," he acquiesced, "but once we get into the city I'll be the one driving."

"But why? You hate driving. And you hate driving in city traffic even more!" His wife had her hands on her hips and her red stained lips set in a scowl. She'd hardly had an opportunity to drive her new Vauxhall Astra since they'd snatched it up so quickly after its release, and she was eager to test her new car's performance.

"Because you, my dear, are a speed demon." He tapped her on the nose, and smoothly dodged the bite she aimed at his finger. Turning to open their closet so he could get dressed, he said his final piece on the matter. "You can drive as fast as you want on these country roads, but once we reach the city I'll be the one at the wheel."

As he moved some hangers aside, he could hear his wife noisily huff and leave the room. Presumably to wake up Harry, who he was sure hadn't slept a wink last night.

Buttoning up his shirt, he caught a glimpse of the photo of Harry framed along the bedroom wall facing the bed. Harry was five in this photo and smiling gap-toothed in a field of sunflowers with an overlarge sun hat on his head. This was taken on their first holiday trip as a family, he remembered. That day, instead of finishing the items on the vacation agenda he'd planned, they had spent the whole afternoon at a sunflower farm that Harry had spotted and then begged to visit.

Tom paused to stare at the photo.

They had both known Harry would have to leave for Hogwarts eventually, but at the start of this venture, he never would've imagined growing so attached to the boy.

* * *

Harry stood in front of the mirror earnestly trying to get his hair to behave for once in his life. There was a slight wave to his brown hair. The sort of wave that might look good on his father, but combined with his already unruly cowlicks, only served to make his hair look even more like a rat's nest.

He was about to give it up as a bad job when his mother stepped up behind him. Leaving his hair in her capable hands, he was relieved to see the mop reach some semblance of order with each successive sweep of her wand.

His mother picked up a jar of pomade from the bathroom vanity to set her hard work in place. Gently tousling the remaining strands, she made an approving noise. "There now, you look very handsome."

"Thanks, mum." Giving his reflection a last rueful look, he sighed. "I can never get it to look right."

"Oh, it's not so bad." Putting away the pomade, she bussed Harry's temple with a kiss. "You should have seen my hair when I was your age."

Harry gave a disbelieving scoff.

* * *

With the family all packed in the car, they set off for King's Cross Station. They'd left early since they lived quite a ways off, but with traffic being the way that it was, by the time they arrived it was already past ten.

Stepping with his parents through the dividing barrier that hid platform 9 3/4, Harry was greeted with the sight of a large scarlet steam engine. It's the Hogwarts Express, he thought excitedly.

There looked to be a sizable number of people on the platform all there to see their children off. Harry could see people already on the train leaning out of the windows to talk to their families or to call out to other Hogwarts students.

"Let's get you settled, Harry." His father snapped his fingers at the cart he'd been pushing, and held his arm out for his mother. His mother linked her arm through his, the graceful movement born from years of habitual contact. Harry's family then walked towards the train, the cart carrying Harry's trunk following obediently behind them.

Slowing to a stop once they'd reached the scarlet engine's closer end, Harry and his parents looked at each other. It was time to say goodbye, but no one knew where to start.

Breaking the moment of stillness, his mother swept him into a tight embrace. Harry, to his horror, found himself almost sniffling into her sweet smelling hair. He felt his father's broad palm on his shoulder and turned to see the rare tender look on his father's face.

He was going to miss them both so much.

Slowly letting him go, his mother wiped at her eyes, smudging her mascara in the process. "Silly me, getting so emotional when you're only going to be gone a few months." She straightened and started brushing the nonexistent dust off his coat. "You're going to have lots of fun, make lots of new friends - that's only something to be happy about!"

"I notice you didn't mention the studying and learning he's expected to be doing." His father pierced his mother with a look of faint exasperation before fixing Harry with a stern gaze. "I'd like regular letters on your progress." His father's lips curled a little. "Goodness knows, Hogwarts' curriculum isn't up to your regular standards."

"Isn't up to _your_ standards, you mean," teased Harry's mother, green eyes twinkling. She gave Harry a look. "Don't burn yourself out hitting the books."

"I won't," Harry replied, and inwardly thought there was little chance of that, no matter how much he wanted to make his father proud. He may enjoy reading, but he wasn't his father, who liked learning for learning's sake.

"Good." His mother nodded with satisfaction before her features twisted with mischievousness. Reaching into her bag, she withdrew a flat parcel trimmed in black and gold and handed it to Harry. "Here's a little something from me."

Harry exclaimed in surprise, "But you and dad already gave me a present!" He was wearing the watch right now, in fact.

"Well, your father was the one who did most of the work in making that watch. I wanted you to have something more personal from me." She gave the parcel a fond glance. "And I think you'll find my present very useful. I certainly did when I was at school."

"What is it?" Harry's fingers itched in anticipation, and he tried to get a feel for what could be wrapped inside by squeezing the parcel experimentally.

His mother winked. "Open it when you find some time alone at Hogwarts."

"Harry, I trust that however you choose to use your mother's gift, you will, at least, make sure what trouble you'll find doesn't lead back to you." His father's voice was mild, but the message was serious enough that Harry gave a quick nod. So my present will lead me to trouble, he thought half wary and half extremely curious.

"Well, we've kept you long enough." His mother gave him one last squeeze and Harry tried to savor her soft warmth. It would be the last time he'd get to enjoy his mother's hugs for a while.

His father removed Harry's trunk from the cart and placed a feather-weight charm on it before handing it back. Tapping the watch with one finger he reminded Harry, "Contact us using this whenever you feel the urge."

Harry then gave his father a hug too, his arms stretching around the only place he could easily reach, which was his father's middle. His father patted his back softly, before pushing him towards the train with a gentle nudge.


	7. Chapter 7

**Hogwarts Express + A New Friend**

* * *

Harry had just settled in for a long ride with his dog-eared copy of _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ , when the door of the compartment slid open to allow the entrance of a red-headed boy and a scuffed, heavy-looking trunk.

"Anyone sitting there?" he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Harry. "Everywhere else is full."

Harry closed his book and shook his head. The boy sat down beside his trunk and the two descended into a thoughtful silence as they both tried and failed to give each other discreet glances.

The red-haired boy rubbed at his nose sheepishly, smearing the black mark that was there a little further, and offered his name. "Ron Weasley. Nice to meet you."

Harry felt relieved. His mother had told him the Weasleys were one of the few pure-blood families who didn't judge a person solely on their blood status. Harry offered Ron his hand. "Harrison Reed. Likewise."

They shook hands and the atmosphere in the compartment became comfortable enough for them to exchange shy smiles.

"So are you muggleborn then?" Ron asked as an icebreaker.

"No. My parents are both half-bloods."

Ron scooted closer, the distance a bit far for easy conversation. "Do you keep in touch with your muggle family? My mom's got a second cousin who's an accountant, but we never talk about him."

Harry gave a shrug. "My parents are both orphans so I don't really have any extended family. I do have some muggle relatives on my mom's side, but I've never met them."

"Oh." Ron's voice was quieter now.

Harry winced. His parents' orphanhood was probably too heavy a topic to spring on someone he just met. He hurriedly tried to change the subject. "But I've been raised with both magical and Muggle customs. We even took a car here today."

Ron was fascinated. "Really? My dad's been trying to charm a Muggle car for ages! My mum's always on his case for it, since my dad's head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office at the Ministry."

"Your dad would probably get along with my mum, then. She likes tinkering with Muggle vehicles. She has a motorbike that she tricked out and everything. My dad made her buy a family car when they had me though, so she keeps the bike in the garage now."

"Garage?"

This started a rather long, but entertaining conversation on Muggle inventions and customs, and Harry was glad his Muggle knowledge could come so in handy, because Ron seemed genuinely interested with every word Harry had to say on the subject.

* * *

By the time the snack cart came around, Harry and Ron's conversation had moved on from inexplicable Muggle practices to more details on their families. Chewing on the chocolate frogs Harry had bought and pocketing the cards – Morgana for Ron and Dumbledore for Harry – they learned a little more about each other.

Ron apparently came from a very big family with five brothers and one sister, and envied Harry his single child status.

Harry had only given a little hum of sympathy as Ron bemoaned his lot as the sixth son of his family. Being a single child wasn't all it was cracked up to be, thought Harry. Sure, he didn't have to deal with any hand-me-downs or live under an older sibling's shadow like Ron apparently did, but he never got to know what it felt like to have a brother or sister, either. And Harry couldn't help thinking he'd been deprived of something priceless as Ron shared another anecdote about a prank his twin brothers had pulled on him.

He'd of course asked his parents for a sibling when he was a child, but his father had only deferred to his mother. "It's her decision, Harry." His father had always been smirking for some unknowable reason, eyes dancing, as he said this. As his mother had only turned green at the very suggestion each time she'd been asked, Harry had resigned himself to a life as an only child.

Harry looked wistfully at Ron, but smiled reassuringly when Ron gave him a questioning glance with hands raised mid-gesture.

"No, no I'm fine! Go on. What were Fred and George doing again?"

The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.

There was a knock on the door of their compartment.

A round-faced boy appeared. "Sorry, but have you seen a toad at all?" He looked tearful.

When they shook their heads, he wailed, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me."

"He'll turn up," said Harry, trying to be encouraging.

"I'm sure..." said the boy miserably, voice trailing off. "Well, if you see him…"

He left, shoulders slumped.

"Don't know why he's so bothered," said Ron. "If I'd bought a toad I'd lose it as quick as I could."

Harry laughed. Toads certainly didn't seem very exciting when you considered all the other options out there. A magical familiar could be very helpful, but Harry had a hard time thinking what use a toad could have. Perhaps the boy was just very attached to the toad as a pet.

The door slid open again. The toadless boy was back, but this time he'd brought a girl with him.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. Her voice was bossy, and she seemed completely oblivious to the nervous head-shaking of the aforementioned Neville beside her. She'd apparently offered to help without listening to the boy.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl didn't seem to be listening to him, either. This seemed to be a trait of hers, the not listening. The girl's eyes had honed in on Harry's _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ book. Harry had abandoned it on top of his trunk and the cover was framed with chocolate frog wrappers.

"Ooh, I haven't read this in ages!" She turned to the boys. "Whose book is this?"

Harry raised a hand. "Mine."

"Are you Muggleborn too?" The girl directed a blinding grin at Harry, which displayed her rather large front teeth. "This is so exciting, isn't it? Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard – I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough – I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

All of this was said very fast, and Harry and Ron looked at each other in bewilderment.

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron muttered finally.

"Harrison Reed," said Harry. "And I'm not Muggleborn, my parents are just half-blooded." He felt like a broken record. Maybe he should create a sign, he thought, only half-joking.

Hermione deflated a little at that. She'd looked awfully excited to see something so familiar in such an unexpected place, and was obviously disappointed that she couldn't commiserate over her new experiences in the Wizarding world with someone who'd understand.

"Well, do either of you know what House you'll be in?" she said, seemingly determined to have them board her enthusiastic train of thought. "I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad...Anyway, we'd better go look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."

And then she left, taking the toadless boy with her, as sudden as she arrived.

"Whatever House I'm in, I hope she's not in it," said Ron, after they finished gaping at the doors.

"What House are your brothers in?" asked Harry, curious. They hadn't talked about the Houses yet, and the topic seemed appropriate as close as they were to Hogwarts.

"Gryffindor," said Ron, mood taking a turn for the gloomy. "Mom and Dad were in it, too. I don't know what they'll say if I'm not. I don't suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in _Slytherin_."

"What's wrong with Slytherin?" Harry asked, surprised.

"What's wrong with Slytherin?" Ron's voice was rife with disbelief. "It's a House full of no-good, slithering snakes, that's what's wrong."

Harry gave a scoff. "Just because Houses are based on traits like courage, intelligence, loyalty, and ambition doesn't mean those sorted actually have those traits. And even if they do, they wouldn't embody those traits all the time, to the exclusion of all else. There are cowardly Gryffindors, dumb Ravenclaws, slacker Hufflepuffs, and unambitious Slytherins everywhere."

Ron looked gobsmacked.

"And you shouldn't label a person good or evil based on their House either." Harry gave Ron an earnest look. He didn't want to alienate his new friend, but he couldn't be friends with Ron if they couldn't agree on something so basic. "You should consider each and every person that appears in front of you as their own person, and decide for yourself based on their actions."

Ron shook his head, but he no longer looked at Harry with that outraged, disbelieving expression, so Harry tentatively counted his little spiel as a success.

Ron opened his trunk to take out his robes. "I still think Slytherins are slimy snakes," he said, but his voice wasn't nearly as aggressively emphatic as it was before.

Harry only smiled as he followed suit and took out his own robes.


	8. Chapter 8

**The Sorting**

* * *

The train slowed to a stop and Harry and Ron joined the throng of other students as they pushed their way onto a small, dark platform. There was a cold, biting breeze and Harry shivered in his relatively thin robes.

A lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Harry heard a booming, cheerfully boisterous voice: "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

An absolutely enormous man with a bushy mane and an even bushier beard to match was beckoning the students over with a beaming smile on his face. That was probably Hagrid, the gamekeeper. Being that large must come in handy when wrangling and breeding magical creatures, thought Harry. And his rosy face seemed positively jolly.

"C'mon, follow me – any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

Hagrid led them down a steep, narrow path that opened onto the edge of a great black lake. There was a round of awed gasps. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side was a vast castle, the glowing windows of its many turrets and towers resplendent against the starry sky.

Hagrid herded the horde of first years across the black lake in a fleet of little boats, and as they got closer and closer, the breathtaking sight of the castle seemed to unfold before them.

Harry now understood why his parents had always considered Hogwarts their first home. The castle seemed so wondrous and mystical, the picture of a perfect magical school, and yet at the same time, nothing could have been a more dear and welcoming sight.

* * *

Hagrid raised a giant first and knocked three times on the castle door.

The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood to greet them. She had a stern looking face and a matronly air that seemed immediately respectable and intimidating.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

She led the first year students across a flagged stone floor to an empty chamber off the hall. They huddled together, a crowd of nervousness and anxiety as Professor McGonagall explained the Sorting Ceremony and the different Hogwarts Houses to them.

Most of this information wasn't news to Harry, but his foreknowledge just made his stomach tighten further in anticipation.

"I shall return when we are ready for you," said the Professor at last. "Please wait quietly."

She then left them to stew in the chamber.

* * *

Harry was separated from Ron as they walked in a single file line through a pair of double doors.

The first thing he saw was a black ceiling dotted with stars. It looked as if the night sky had enveloped the Great Hall in a beautiful, otherworldly space. It was just as enchanting as his parents' had always described.

Thousands of lit candles were floating in midair over the four House tables, which were already filled with older Hogwarts students. At the back of the hall was a raised floor with another long table for the faculty. Professor McGonagall led the first years up there so that they came to a halt in a line facing the older students, the Hogwarts faculty behind them. The hundreds of faces staring out at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight and Harry felt the weight of their stares keenly.

Professor McGonagall silently placed the famous Sorting Hat on a stool in front of them. It looked incredibly shabby to Harry's mind, but the fact that it had sat upon the heads of countless prospective wizards since Hogwarts' conception gave its wear and tear image an edge of respectability. Wizards could have kept such a priceless artifact immaculate with magic, but letting it visibly age was a way of honoring its authenticity, presumably.

A rip near the brim of the hat opened wide like a mouth, and it introduced itself with a humorous song.

The whole hall applauded as the hat finished and bowed to each of the four tables.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment. "When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted," she said. "Abbott, Hannah!"

And on it went. As the ranks of each of the Houses were slowly filled, Harry watched the line of people in front of him get smaller and smaller.

The girl Hermione from the train was sorted into Gryffindor and Harry could hear Ron groan from somewhere behind him.

Neville Longbottom, the boy who kept losing his toad, was sorted into Gryffindor as well.

The boy from the robes shop, the Malfoy heir, was predictably sorted into Slytherin. He seemed awfully smug as he joined his friends, who both looked properly large and menacing. Harry smiled a little. His father had taught him the value of family alliances for purebloods, but he couldn't help thinking that the two boys bore a startling resemblance to the evil lackeys he'd often see on television. It wouldn't do to have such obvious looking henchmen, he imagined his father saying.

There weren't many people left now.

"Moon", "Nott", "Parkinson", then a pair of twin girls "Patil" and "Patil", then "Perks", and then, at last –

"Reed, Harrison!"

Harry stepped forward, his legs feeling like jelly.

The hat dropped over his eyes and he waited in silence.

"Hmm," said a small voice in his ear. "Difficult. There's intelligence here, oh there's no doubt about that – but learning's not where your heart lies. And there's so much loyalty to be found in you, such deep devotion to those you hold dear...And this hunger! This _need_ for connection… it's so very interesting…"

Harry could feel sweat beading up on his forehead. He didn't particularly care where he ended up, but he wanted to get the sorting over with sooner rather than later. He knew only a few seconds would have passed for those watching, but sitting and hearing the Sorting Hat speculate about what it found swimming in his head was extremely uncomfortable.

"Eager to be off are you?" The hat sounded amused. "Well, the greatest quality you have must be this righteous spirit of yours. The choice is clear then – better be GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. Taking it off with relief, Harry walked shakily to the Gryffindor table and sat down next to the other first years at one end.

And now there were only four people left to be sorted. "Thomas, Dean," went to Gryffindor, "Turpin, Lisa," became a Ravenclaw and then it was Ron's turn. He was a pale, sickly green color as he walked to put on the hat. The hat's promptly shouted "GRYFFINDOR!" however, was enough to completely transform Ron's face from one of anxious fright to one of pleased satisfaction.

Harry clapped loudly with the rest of the Gryffindors as Ron collapsed next to him on the bench.

One of Ron's brothers, Percy the Prefect judging by his badge, congratulated him pompously - "Well done, Ron, excellent" - as the last boy, "Zabini, Blaise," was made a Slytherin. Professor McGonagall finally rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.

Harry looked up at the High Table as Albus Dumbledore got to his feet. He looked just like his chocolate frog card with his trademark long white beard and twinkling blue gaze.

"Welcome!" The man said, arms opened wide. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

He gave another smile after these inexplicable sentiments, said an effusive "Thank you!" and sat back down to much clapping and cheers. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not. It was said that all geniuses were eccentrics, Harry thought, giving a rueful shake of his head.

The gold dishes in front of Harry were now piled with food, each as delicious as the last. As he bit into a treacle tart, he silently apologized to his mother because it was the best treacle tart he ever had.

* * *

Feeling warm and sleepy from all the food and drink, Harry peered at the High Table once more. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. And a hook-nosed man at the far end of the table was glaring at the grinning man next to him with what looked to be absolute loathing.

Harry gave a double take. He turned to Percy and asked, "Who are those two men at the end?"

"Oh, that's Professor Snape and Professor Black. They absolutely hate each other. Snape teaches Potions and Black teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts, but everybody knows Snape would rather have Black's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape. 'Course Black knows his stuff too, but Snape probably just wants to stick it to him and take his job out of spite."

Harry nodded slowly. He recognized Sirius Black from the modern history textbooks he'd read, and it was weird seeing the real thing in the flesh.

Voldemort had targeted the family of James Potter, Black's best friend, and killed them all, man, woman, and child, before inexplicably dying at their home in Godric's Hollow. A grieving Sirius Black had confronted Potter's secret keeper, Peter Pettigrew, just hours after Voldemort's fall was reported. Pettigrew had reportedly betrayed Potter and his family and told Voldemort of their whereabouts, breaking their Fidelius protection. When Black challenged him to a duel, Pettigrew had blasted a whole street, killing thirteen Muggles, and faked his own death to frame Black for the explosion. He'd almost gotten away with it, too, until he was anonymously captured and delivered to the Ministry just days before what would have been Black's farce of a trial. Black was fully acquitted, of course, and after Dumbledore took him under his wing, he'd been a professor at Hogwarts teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts ever since.

It was strange seeing such a famous character, Harry reflected as he turned to see Dumbledore rise once more. Dumbledore was quite famous too, but his long presence in Wizarding society, spotless reputation, and highly prestigious position made him a far less tantalizing figure in the eyes of the masses. The man in question gave a few last remarks and led the students in singing a rousing rendition of the Hogwarts school anthem.

Afterwards, the Gryffindor first years followed Percy through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up a marble staircase that would presumably lead them to the Gryffindor dormitories. Harry was too tired and full of food to remember much of the way, but he reasoned that he'd have plenty of opportunities later to memorize the route.

At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress.

"Password?" she asked.

"Caput Draconis," said Percy, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all struggled to scramble through it. Not unlike mice scrambling through a mouse hole, Harry giggled to himself. The excitement of the day must be getting to him.

Harry got a quick glimpse of the common room – it looked very warm and cozy, with an alarming amount of red and gold – before he followed the rest of the first year boys up the spiral staircase and into their dormitory. The room was a large hexagon with four-poster beds and matching desks and dressers occupying five sides of the room. One side for each of the five boys. A window occupied the remaining wall furthest from the door. Harry noticed that their trunks had already been brought up and placed at the foot of each bed.

Harry's bed was conveniently right next to Ron's, and they exchanged one last tired smile between them as all of the boys changed into pajamas and fell into their respective beds, too exhausted to do much else.

Closing the deep red, velvet curtains hanging around his four-poster, Harry was distracted by the moonlight glinting off the watch at his wrist. He opened the white-gold case, raised the watch to his face, and gave a hissed _§mirror§_.

"Mom, dad?" Harry tried his best to whisper. He didn't want the other boys thinking he was such a baby he needed to call his parents his first night away at Hogwarts.

"Harry?"

His mother's delighted face came into view and Harry waved to hide his yawn. "Hey, mom. Is dad there?"

He settled against the small mountain of pillows at the head of the luxurious four-poster as his mother moved her mirror to show his father right next to her. They were about to go to sleep too, it looked like.

"Here he is." His mother's face came back into view. "So, what's the verdict?" Her voice was carefully nonchalant, but Harry knew she was burning with curiosity.

"Gryffindor," Harry grinned.

The image shook a little as his mother punched the air. Her voice crowed with pride. "Look at that Tom! Now there are two lions in the family. You're positively outnumbered!"

"I never thought he'd be anything else." The mirror turned to show his father's face as he spoke. "Your influence on the boy was obviously too irreparable," he said dryly.

Harry tried to muffle his laughter into his pillow.

His father gave Harry a soft look. "Was it everything you'd thought it'd be?"

Harry sighed happily. "It was even better."

* * *

 **A/N:** I trust that everyone knows the identity of Harry's mum by now. If not, the next chapter should remove all doubt.


	9. Chapter 9

**Empty Nest**

* * *

Harriet opened the front door with a little judicious use of magic. Her arms were full of grocery bags, and she lamented her own awful shopping habits. She always came home with more than she intended to buy in the first place. Curse those attractive displays and too-tempting markdowns!

Stepping inside and slipping off her heeled boots, she took out her wand and sent the bags off to the kitchen to put themselves away.

Harriet felt the silence and almost listlessness of the manor keenly as she stood in the entryway. The air was too still and too quiet without Harry's piping voice. Even the sunlight streaming through the windows seemed a shade too pale. The manor mirrored her own melancholy state of mind perfectly.

Their son had been gone for only a week, but she and Tom already felt the consequences of his absence.

Harriet had fallen into a state of ennui, hardly moving from her spot on the couch and constantly re-watching her son's baby videos. Sick of feeling sorry for herself, she had finally stepped out of the house for a change of scenery.

Tom was different. In times of distress - though he'd definitely object to her using the word 'distress' - Tom was more likely to throw himself into magical pursuits in an effort to feel productive.

But the man sequestering himself for days in his workroom was enough to show Harriet that Tom was just as affected as she was.

* * *

Harry draped his coat and scarf on the back of his vanity chair and slipped out of his knit dress. He undid the ties of his corset with a faint whisper of magic. (Tom usually enjoyed teasing the ties loose for him, but needs must.)

The corset had been uncomfortable at first, but he loved how tiny his already narrow waist looked while wearing it. The corset also gave him actual hips without all the commitment, something Harry definitely appreciated.

Harry reached around to remove his padded lacy bra. (Tom was also better at this maneuver than he was, but to be fair, Tom did have more practice taking them off.)

He examined his face in the mirror. He'd gone with a more berry look today to bring out the plummy tones of his dress and scarf. The eyeshadow was a bit dark for daytime, but he liked the deep burgundy and maroon colors. They went well with his bright green eyes. He usually removed his makeup straight away once he got home, but he loved this fall look so much it seemed a shame not to wear it for a little longer.

He took his hair out of its bun and ran his fingers through the kinks left in the glossy, black curls. Throwing on a baggy cable-knit sweater, Harry left the bedroom to find Tom. The man was long overdue for a break, and hopefully he could coax him into eating something.

On days like today, the switch from 'Harriet' to 'Harry' was as easy as taking off a few accessories and removing some makeup. On other days, the switch was more like peeling off a second skin, leaving Harry raw and vulnerable.

Over the years, Harry had perfected the art of putting herself together and taking himself apart. The procedure had become a calming, cathartic ritual for him.

As a child, he'd always felt conflicted when experimenting with feminine things, but he'd long since moved past the internalized feelings of shame and self-disgust from his days at the Dursleys.

'You're no longer that boy in the cupboard, so why do you insist on acting as if you never left?" Tom had asked after he followed Harry home that first time.

It was a question that Harry would never forget.

* * *

The manor's old ballroom made an ideal workspace. Its high ceilings and open floor plan gave Tom abundant space, and once they exchanged the beautiful but highly impractical marble for a more enduring travertine there was little need to worry about any stray magic causing excessive damage. Tom had wards and other magical safety measures in place as well, but he tried to keep those to an absolutely minimum. Any magical contamination would compromise his results and potentially ruin his experiments.

The experiment he was working on right now was for a revision to his paper, _The Importance of Ritual Performance to the Maintenance of Magically Rich Areas_. The review board of the journal he'd submitted to wanted additional data using different parameters. Tom would have to complete several new experiments over the course of the next month or so if he wanted his submission to be considered in time for the next publication.

Looking from the basic ritual schema he'd designed to a map of Great Britain, he searched for appropriate new locations. He had been very thorough in his choices the first time around, so there were few magic-rich areas left that were powerful enough to be worth documenting.

Tom had been a magical researcher for the past decade, and in his relatively young career, he had already produced a steady stream of well-received papers. He was well known in the academic community for the quality of his data and his sound, incisive conclusions. Unfortunately, his papers weren't often accepted into recognized journals because he published them under the name 'Thomas Reed.'

No matter how accepting and progressive the era, pure blood still had its leverage in Wizarding society, Tom mused.

Academia was not exempt from political maneuverings, and any renown journal that accepted the publishings of an unaffiliated muggleborn was bound to lose a significant portion of its financial backing. And in Tom's case, even if he claimed half-blood status, the fact that he had no connections and no documented history made him little more than a muggleborn in the eyes of those who mattered.

Modern Wizarding Britain touted acceptance and tolerance, but there remained very little movement between the classes. Established and monied pure blood families pulled the strings from their positions at the top, lesser pure blood families made up the middle class, and half-bloods and Muggleborns were always at the bottom.

Voldemort's fall had given the Muggle sympathizers a chance to push for some Muggleborn-friendly legislation, but Tom knew very little change would come of it.

He was by no means a Muggle integrationist, but even he could see that Wizarding culture was stagnant and inferior. The pervading belief that old is better, tradition is paramount, and wizard might is infallible was killing all opportunities for progress.

A society that could not bend, could not change, would die. It was as simple as that. Tom cared deeply about magic and the furthering of magical potential, but nothing would give him greater pleasure than the destruction of such a weak and ideologically flawed society.

Nothing but seeing to that destruction himself, that is.

* * *

"That's quite a look on your face, Tom. You're lucky you're already bonded because I doubt anyone else would have you."

Tom turned to give Harry a raised brow. "I don't have a look on my face."

Harry set a plate of sandwiches down next to a neat stack of papers and raised his hand to trace Tom's smiling lips. "My mistake. I forgot that evil triumph was your default expression."

Tom kissed Harry's wandering fingers and picked up one of the sandwiches.

Harry hummed a little as he watched him eat and leaned his hip against the work table. Catching sight of the map, he quirked a look at Tom. "I thought we were done with the trips."

Tom gave his sandwich one last bite before summoning a napkin with a flick of his fingers. Cleaning his hands, he answered, "The journal review board requires that I conduct more trials. They want to see the same experiments done in new locations with different rituals."

Harry gave Tom a considering glance. "When would these experiments have to be done?"

"Some time in the next few weeks."

"Do you think we could pop by Hogwarts and visit Harrison while we're at it?" Harry's eyes held an excited gleam. "The first Quidditch match is coming up soon. They allow outside visitors to come and watch."

Tom smiled. "I don't see why not."

* * *

 **A/N:** Older!Harry uses female pronouns when referring to himself as Harriet, but he does not consider himself female. He is gender-fluid. If you guys have any further concerns about older!Harry's gender identity you may address them in a review and I'll try my best to answer any questions.

*P.S. No, younger!Harry does not know this about his mother. Older!Harry chooses to express himself only as Harriet when he's with Harry, not because he thinks men can't be nurturing, but because he wants to be a mother when he's with his son.

*P.P.S. I'm sorry if anyone feels uncomfortable with gender-fluid Harry. I didn't warn you guys beforehand since I wanted to preserve some of the mystery, but if anyone thinks they can't continue with this story after knowing this, feel free to do so. I won't hold it against you. ^^


	10. Chapter 10

**Time Flies**

* * *

Harry was very grateful for his mother's foresight, for in those early days the map was instrumental to navigating Hogwarts' twisting passageways. The castle - like all old magical buildings - seemed to have achieved some measure of sentience, and had developed the sense of humor of a particularly whimsical uncle: paternal, but still more often than not a bothersome trickster to its charges. The staircases, the walls, and the doors all seemed to rearrange themselves in some previously agreed upon pattern that didn't take the opinion of the Hogwarts 1st years into account, whatsoever.

Harry had since become a compass for all the other 1st years as he unerringly found his way to all his classes. He hadn't shared the secret of his mother's map with anyone but his best friend Ron, however, for even he knew that such a gesture could be easily taken advantage of.

The other half of his mother's gift, the invisibility cloak, hadn't gotten as much use as the map. Harry was still adjusting to Hogwarts, and he wanted to settle in for a bit longer before bending any rules and testing any tempers.

Besides, the Hogwarts classes themselves were more than enough to be getting on with for now.

He found Herbology, History of Magic, and Astronomy to be easy, but regrettably boring classes.

Herbology was mindless physical labor at this point, with lots of memorization of different plant properties to tie in with the other classes. Harry was disappointed. It would be years before he could do anything really interesting, like breeding his own strains of magical plants. His parents' experiments with magical flora and fauna had obviously spoiled his appreciation for basic learning, which lacked innovation and creative input. But Professor Sprout was a cheerful, no-nonsense sort of teacher that reminded them not to make light of the demands of Herbology when many of the students complained of the dirt and the sweat. Harry inwardly groaned when he saw one girl tearfully mourn the disaster that had become of her painted nails. It was Herbology for god's sake, and they thought they wouldn't have to get dirty?

History of Magic was mind-numbingly rote memorization, and Professor Binns was as interesting in death as he probably was in life, which suffice to say was not very interesting. Harry resigned himself to self-study in that class, and often read ahead and then slept his way through Binns' lectures which, regardless of time period, always seemed to focus on Goblin rebellions. Binns was apparently quite the conspiracy theorist, and believed it was imperative that all children learn the history of such rebellions before it was too late.

And the biggest difficulty Astronomy had to offer was its late scheduling. Classes were held on Wednesdays at midnight, and it was a struggle to muster up the will to climb up the steps of the East Tower to spend an hour and a half peering through their telescopes with bleary, sleep-crusted eyes.

The more exciting classes - Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense Against the Dark Arts - were exciting because they actually gave the students a chance to use their newly-bought wands.

Most day to day spellwork utilized charms, so Harry made sure to pay extra attention as their tiny charms teacher, Professor Flitwick, squeaked excitedly through his demonstrations and explanations.

Professor McGonagall, Harry was unsurprised to find, was just as strict as his first impression of her suggested. She, out of all the other instructors so far, seemed to instill the most order in her students. The lesson itself had been very engrossing, and the first exercise she assigned was to transfigure a needle from a match. Hermione Granger was the first to reach the silver colored and pointy stage, but by the end of class Harry had been the only one to change his match completely from wood to silver metal. McGonagall had given them both points, but Granger had seemed particularly put out that she'd had to share in the accomplishment. Harry had to hide from her glares the rest of that morning.

But Harry could honestly say that his favorite class so far was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Professor Black was the most energetic and animated of their professors, and his first class had made quite an impression.

The Gryffindor first years had opened the third floor classroom and filed in semi-neatly when an all-encompassing darkness descended upon them. The darkness was so impenetrable, the students could not even see their own hands stretched out in front of them. Pandemonium erupted before Professor Black's voice could be heard echoing from the ceiling.

"Here's your very first lesson, boys and girls! The Wand-Lighting Charm is just what you guys need. Now make a short thrusting movement with your wand and shout _LUMOS_!"

A dozen or so shouts could be heard, and faint pin-points of light started appearing here and there before sputtering away quickly. It took two more shouted encouragements from Professor Black before a brightly glowing torch of a wand-tip made itself known in the darkness.

"There you go! You there, what's your name?"

"Harrison Reed, sir!" Harry had called, flushing a little.

"Five points to Gryffindor, Reed!" Black yelled from somewhere overhead. "Now, all of you, I want you to shout _lumos_ from the very tops of your lungs! You don't need to shout to perform the spell, but I personally think it helps to really belt it the first time. Ready? One, two, three, GO!"

The enthusiastic shouts of the dozen or so eleven years olds soon filled the room, and white lights started blossoming out of the dark until each ecstatic little face was outlined by the soft glow of a wand.

The darkness seemed to peel itself back from the floors and walls, and the students watched, amazed, as the blacker than black strips folded in on themselves and became a compact box in the hands of their instructor. The man pressed his hands together and the box of darkness vanished into nothingness. Leaping down from the iron chandelier he'd been perched on this whole time, Professor Black bowed showily to much applause.

They spent the rest of that class learning the theory behind the spell they'd just performed. It was admittedly a very backwards way of doing things, but their Professor had confessed he'd always preferred practice over theory and the Wand-Lighting Charm was simple enough that it didn't require much conceptualization beforehand, anyways.

* * *

Today was the day of their very first Potions class. The class was held once a week on Fridays, filled two morning period slots, and was shared with the Slytherins. Ron had been bemoaning this last fact all breakfast long in between bites of egg and sausage.

Harry gave a sigh as he buttered his toast. "Ron, don't you think it's ridiculous to hate Slytherins on principle when we haven't even met any yet?"

"Harry, everyone knows only the worst sort of wizards come out of Slytherin. I don't need to meet one to know they're a bad egg."

Harry scowled. "So I guess all those Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw criminals need to be resorted then. Are you even listening to yourself?" Harry bit into his toast savagely. "You're letting some House rivalry color your whole moral landscape!"

"What does that even mean, Harry?"

Harry put down his toast, exasperated. "It means that you're judging people you haven't met yet based on what traits a hat arbitrarily picks out of their head when they're eleven years old!"

Ron gave a gusty sigh. "Fine, fine. Don't get your knickers in a twist. I promise to look twice before I give the snake a hex to the face. No promises if they shoot first, however." Ron shook a piece of sausage at Harry's face. "Being non-judgemental is one thing, but no one likes a weak pansy."

Harry gave a relieved smile. He hated having to revisit this rant every other day, but drilling it in as often as he could was the only way he knew to really send the message home. Making waves in his new House was the last thing he wanted to do, but he'd be far more unhappy listening to this kind of idiotic schoolboy prejudice day-in and day-out. "That's all I can ask for."

* * *

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Professor Snape was just as successful as Professor McGonagall in his ability to control his class, but while McGonagall accomplished this with an air of competence and stern discipline, Professor Snape achieved this effect by putting the fear of god into his students. And by god, Harry meant Snape, because in this class he definitely was their god, and a wrathful one at that.

The man was also particularly biased towards his own house. He gave the Slytherins the easiest questions and let them rack up points and posed the hardest questions to the Gryffindors, who were often too nervous to utter their doubtlessly incorrect answers. Snape would then proceed to cut the students down to size with a steady stream of insults, all the while deducting points and ignoring the students who'd raised their hands to help their housemates. Hermione Granger, who clearly was chomping at the bit to provide the correct answers, would have her hand raised so high she was practically stretched out of her seat.

Harry was appalled. This man was obviously not suited to teaching children, whatever his potioneering skills, and was an even worse choice of professor than the dead man who floated his way through every History of Magic lesson!

Things didn't improve for the Gryffindors as the Potions lesson continued. Dividing them into pairs, Snape spelled the ingredient list and directions of a simple boil-cure potion onto the blackboard. Sweeping around in his long black cloak, he narrowly watched them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to favor.

Ron was frowning hard in concentration as he measured dried nettles onto his brass scales, and Harry sighed. This class was hardly going to improve his friend's opinion of Slytherins.

He turned at the commotion he saw happening over at Seamus Finnigan and Neville Longbottom's shared potion station. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus' cauldron into a twisted pewter blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

Snape instructed Seamus to take the boy to the hospital wing, and proceeded to make the rest of the Gryffindors pay for Neville's mistake by being even more belligerent and condescending, if that was even possible.

A vein was pulsing in Harry's forehead. Neville was already a very nervous and jittery boy, and it was generally acknowledged that he was prone to clumsiness. Place him in such a charged, tense atmosphere under such stressful conditions and he was bound to make a mistake somewhere. Couldn't Snape see that?

* * *

After they left the dungeon an hour later, Harry and Ron stopped by the kitchens for a basket of get-well treats. They were planning to spend the rest of their free afternoon visiting Neville in the hospital wing.

The boy was laid up in one of the beds, slathered in a lilac cream. The boils had lessened somewhat and the swellings that remained were considerably less angry looking.

"How are you, Neville?" Harry asked, pulling up a chair.

Ron set the basket of goodies down on the nightstand beside the hospital bed and was pulling out plates of pastries and biscuits to pass around.

Neville sat up against his pillows and nibbled on a jelly filled butter cookie. "A little better…"

"That's good. Snape can be pretty nasty. He's always taking points off Fred and George, so you shouldn't take it to heart. He treats everyone that way." Ron said this through a mouth of biscuit, but Neville seemed to appreciate the sentiment all the same.

The cookie in Harry's hand crumbled under the force of his anger. "He shouldn't treat anyone that way, much less one of his students! Teachers are supposed to provide a nurturing environment that facilitates learning! How is anyone supposed to learn with him breathing down our necks and blaming us for not knowing the stuff he's supposed to teach!"

Ron and Neville looked surprised at Harry's outburst. The brown-haired boy was usually very soft-spoken and mannerly, and his rants on tolerance and logical-thinking had unintentionally labeled him as a pacifist in the eyes of the other Gryffs.

"It's alright, Harry." Neville gave a watery smile. "I'm probably too stupid to teach anyway."

Harry grabbed Neville by the hands. "No, you're not! Don't underestimate yourself like that. Ron and I will help you."

Ron nodded. "I might not be the best, but I can follow directions alright if I understand them."

Harry groaned. "See, that's the problem. Snape is supposed to be explaining things to us so that we understand the whys and the hows behind a potion's directions."

He gave a frustrated sigh as he ran his fingers through the waves in his hair. Blowing a strand out of his eyes he gave Neville and Ron a determined look. "Let's form a study group for Snape's class. We're going to get so good, Snape won't be able to say a thing to us next time."

Ron gave Harry a grin. "That would show the bastard."

Neville gasped at Ron's less than deferential name for their Professor, but he agreed to Harry's suggestion with a much happier expression than the hopelessly wan smile he'd sported before. "I need all the help I can get."

The three boys agreed to reserve a few hours each week for intensive Potions studying purposes. They would review their assigned textbook thoroughly and practice making the potions in one of the many abandoned classrooms. Harry would ask his parents to chaperone these sessions in case of any accidents. His parents were bound to approve of his proactiveness and agree to such a request.

Neville suggested borrowing some basic Potions methodology texts from the Hogwarts library.

Ron offered to ask his brothers to help spread the word about their Potions study group.

The boys exchanged excited little smiles, their lips covered in crumbs and their eyes shining.

* * *

A week after the start of their study group sessions, a notice was pinned up in the Gryffindor common room announcing that joint Flying lessons with the Slytherins would be starting on Thursday.

The announcement that they'd all be learning to fly sent all of the first years into spasms of fervorous anticipation. Everyone had a story to tell about their first experiences on a broom, and no one could escape talking about Quidditch when on the subject of flying.

Harry joined these conversations just as enthusiastically as anyone else. To hear his mother tell it, he'd been zooming around on broomsticks since he was a wee tot. In one of their late-night mirror calls she even played some video evidence for him. He'd squeaked in such embarrassment that Ron had paused in his snoring for a full minute. As for Quidditch, he and his mother had always been fans of teams with incredibly talented Seekers. His mother didn't have any deep-seated loyalty to any of these teams but she did follow the World Cup matches religiously, and Harry had many fond memories of their family traveling to watch the matches in person.

Harry was a fan of Puddlemere United, since that was the first professional Quidditch team he'd ever seen in the flesh. He still had an autographed picture of the members framed on his bedroom wall back home.

On the opposite end of the spectrum however, were those absolutely dreading the flying lessons. Neville had never been on a broomstick in his life because his grandmother had hardly let him near one. And Hermione Granger was almost as nervous about flying as Neville was, possibly even more so since she'd only heard of the possibility of broomstick flight just recently.

This was something you couldn't learn by heart out of a book – not that she hadn't tried. At breakfast on Thursday, she bored them all stupid with flying tips she'd gotten out of a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neville was the only one paying her advice any attention, but he was distracted by the arrival of a package.

A barn owl had brought Neville a small parcel from his grandmother. Opening it excitedly, he showed them a glass ball the size of a large marble and filled with white smoke.

It was a Remembrall. Apparently Neville was very forgetful and his grandmother was keen to remind him of that fact.

The ball glowed red and Neville was trying to remember what he could have possibly forgotten when Draco Malfoy, who was passing the Gryffindor table, snatched the ball out of his hand.

McGonagall, who could probably spot delinquency at a thousand paces, was there in a flash to make Malfoy give the ball back.

Ron patted a sniffling Neville on the back. Harry gave the retreating Malfoy a glare. Malfoy was the most trivial and petty of bullies, in his opinion. The other Gryffs hated Malfoy first and foremost because he was a snake of Slytherin House, but Harry hated the fact that the blonde was such an unrepentant git. And such an immature, uncreative one too.

* * *

At three-thirty in the afternoon, Harry and the other Gryffindors hurried down the front steps onto the grounds for their first flying lesson. It was a clear, breezy day, and the grass rippled invitingly under their feet as they marched down the sloping lawns toward a smooth, flat field.

The Slytherins were already there, and so were two lines of broomsticks lying neatly on the ground.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, was there waiting. She had a gunmetal grey pixie cut and hawk-like yellow eyes that seemed to pierce the students where they stood.

"Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up."

Harry and Ron made sure to stand on either side of Neville. The boy seemed relieved to have their support, and even stood a little straighter.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!'"

"UP!" everyone shouted.

Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, its vibrations almost a purr against his fingers. Ron's broom jumped just as fast, almost too eager, and Ron hissed at the force of it. Hermione Granger's broom on the other side of Harry simply rolled over on the ground, and Neville's didn't move at all.

Harry whispered to Neville. "Try not to show the broom you're afraid. It's like an animal, it can sense the fear of its rider."

Neville gulped but tried once more, injecting a little more confidence into his quavering voice. Harry noted surprisingly that Hermione was listening just as intently to his advice.

She flushed once she saw him staring. "What?"

Harry laughed. "Nothing."

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount their brooms without sliding off the end, and walked up and down the rows correcting their grips. Harry and Ron were delighted when she told Malfoy he'd been doing it wrong for years.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle – three – two – one!"

They all kicked off and rose a few feet in the air. Some rose higher than others. Some wobbled a little. Some people looked petrified with fear and gripped their broom handles as if their lives depended on it. Neville was one of those few, and as the rest of them landed, he seemed to rise higher and higher.

"Come back, boy!" she shouted, but Neville was rising straight up like a cork shot out of a bottle – twelve feet – twenty feet. Neville's white face looked down at the ground falling away, and Harry saw him gasp, slip sideways off the broom and –

WHAM – a thud and a nasty crack and Neville lay facedown on the grass in a heap. His broomstick was still rising higher and higher, and it was now almost entirely out of sight.

Madam Hooch rushed over to attend to Neville and usher him to the Hospital Wing. It was his second visit in as many weeks, Harry thought, wincing.

Malfoy burst into laughter once Hooch was out of earshot. "Did you see his face, the great lump?"

The other Slytherins joined in.

"Look!" said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. "It's that stupid thing Longbottom got in the mail today."

The Remembrall glittered like a ruby in the light of the afternoon sun as he held it up.

"Give that here, Malfoy," said Harry, his voice deadly quiet. Everyone stopped talking to watch.

Malfoy smiled nastily.

"If you can catch me, Reed!" And the boy leapt onto his broomstick and took off. Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called, "Come and get it!"

Harry grabbed his broom.

"No!" shouted Hermione Granger. "Madam Hooch told us not to move – you'll get us all into trouble."

Harry gave Hermione a green-eyed stare. "I'd hate to let Malfoy mess with my friends without doing something to stop it."

The girl bit her lip.

Harry mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he soared. The air rushed through his hair, and his robes whipped out behind him. He pulled his broomsticker up a little to take it even higher, and heard the screams and gasps of the girls back on the ground as well as an admiring whoop from Ron.

He turned his broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair. Malfoy looked stunned.

"Give it here, Malfoy," Harry called.

Malfoy gave one last sneer, before taking off like a javelin and almost ramming Harry out of the sky.

Harry swore and swerved out of the way just in time. Twisting his broom he turned to shoot after Malfoy.

They chased each other like two tiny comets, getting faster and faster. Harry's blood was pumping, but underneath all that anger Harry felt a rush of exhilaration. This was the fastest he'd ever gone on a broom and it was unreal that he was actually facing someone his own age for a change. And he could have sworn that Malfoy was just as delighted as he was by the fact that he was flying against a worthy opponent.

Stopping suddenly, Harry called out to the blonde boy. "Hey, Malfoy we can continue this any time. How about you return Neville's Remembrall before Hooch comes back?"

Draco Malfoy looked gobsmacked. "Are you out of your mind Reed?"

"Not at all!" Harry gave Malfoy a winsome grin. "So what do you say?"

Malfoy gave Harry a considering look, before glancing down. Harry looked as well. Below them their two Houses were turning towards each other, perplexed at the fact the chase had ended. They were too high up to be heard.

Malfoy tossed the ball from hand to hand. Harry hissed.

"It'd look awfully bad if I just handed this back to you, Reed." Malfoy drawled. There was a glint in his grey eyes that Harry didn't trust.

Maybe he was wrong and Malfoy was just a git and nothing more, but he wanted to try his luck and bet that somewhere in Malfoy's stuck-up, pure-blooded heart there was a boy who had just as much fun flying as Harry did.

"Then don't hand it back to me." Harry pointed his broom downwards. "Throw it, as hard as you can. I'll catch it."

Malfoy's eyes widened. "You're mad."

Harry shook his head. "Throw it!" His voice was more emphatic now, strong with confidence. He may have only practiced diving once, but he was sure he could catch anything Malfoy could throw at him.

Malfoy was slow to respond, and Harry almost thought he wasn't going to take up his challenge after all, but the blonde boy drew his arm back and hurled the ball past Harry as hard as he could.

Harry grinned and shot himself after the ruby ball, which was rapidly gaining speed in its downward descent. He leaned forward even further – next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball – wind whistled in his ears, mingles with the screams of the people watching – he stretched out his hand – a foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the Remembrall clutched safely in his fist.


	11. Chapter 11

**Getting Along**

* * *

"HARRISON REED!"

Harry froze in horror, his heart sinking faster than he'd just dived. He could hear Malfoy landing somewhere behind him, and they both watched helplessly as Professor McGonagall ran towards them.

"– in all my time at Hogwarts –"

The Professor was apoplectic with shock, and her glasses flashed furiously, "– how you – might have broken your neck –"

He could see Malfoy slowly attempt to creep away, from the corner of his eye.

"Stop right there, Mr. Malfoy." McGonagall pinned the blonde with a most disapproving stare. "I'll be taking you to your Head of House. He'll decide what's to be done with you." She turned to address them both. "Follow me, now, both of you."

They hurried to meet her quick strides as she led them back towards the castle, shooting each other fearful glances all along the way. It seemed like they were now comrades of circumstance.

* * *

After dropping off Malfoy at Snape's office, McGonagall led Harry to a classroom.

Opening the door and poking her head inside, she said,"Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Wood for a moment?"

Oh dear god, thought Harry. The woman was going to cane him.

But Wood turned out to be a person. A burly fifth-year boy, to be exact, who also turned out to be the Gryffindor Quidditch captain.

Harry stood there, dazed by this series of bizarre events. Apparently his and Malfoy's quite literal flight of fancy was enough to earn Harry a spot on the Quidditch team.

Perhaps Professor McGonagall wasn't such a stickler for the rules after all. Or at least, her competitive spirit and passion for Quidditch seemed enough to bend her straight-laced discipline.

* * *

At dinner, Harry explained the situation to a disbelieving Ron and Neville.

Ron was so amazed, so impressed, he just sat and gaped at Harry.

Neville, who had just gotten his wrist fixed up by Madam Pomfrey, was a bit less enthused. The boy was still wan from his crash landing earlier this afternoon and would be understandably leery of brooms for the near future.

"I start training next week," said Harry. "Only don't tell anyone, Wood wants to keep it a secret."

Ron and Neville both agreed hurriedly, Ron still rendered speechless by the idea of Harry being the youngest house player in a century and Neville eager to get off the topic of flying.

Harry glanced over at the Slytherin table. Malfoy was talking with his two friends, the hulking Crabbe and the just as gargantuan Goyle. He wondered if Malfoy had fared just as well as he had.

He reached subtly into his book bag for the pack of charmed origami paper he'd brought from home. He knew all the folds by heart, but his magic control had just gotten precise enough to actually imbue the origami creatures with enough thought and magic to carry out his will, without burning through the thin paper.

His father had done a study on the use of paper in Asian wizardry and had learned to fold and charm the origami creatures in a matter of days. Harry was nowhere near as prodigious as his father at the art, but as he applied a valley-fold and a mountain-fold to make the beak of his owl, he thought affectionately that his creatures had a rather quirky charm of their own that his father's more dignified creations lacked. Turning the bird over underneath the table and cutting the top layer of the patterned paper with his penknife, he applied the last two folds.

Holding the finished tiny owl in the palm of his hands, he marveled over its jewel-green head and wings and its gilt-gold body. Turning away from the House table slightly, he cupped the owl in his hands and raised it towards his face. To anyone watching, he'd only appear as if he was preparing for a sneeze. Harry then whispered his message to the origami creature, lacing the words with imperative urgency and discrete caution. The green-gold bird twitched to life, and flapped its paper wings toward the Slytherin table with a burst of speed.

"Did anyone see that?" Neville asked, rubbing at his eyes.

"See what?" Ron questioned, occupied with his second chicken drumstick.

* * *

Draco was shocked to see a small jewel-bright owl fly onto the back of his hand just as he was raising his goblet to his mouth. He turned to his two compatriots, but they seemed oblivious to the existence of the creature.

Upon closer inspection he found the bird to be made entirely of paper. The green side of the paper was patterned with intricately woven gold leaves and tiny three-petaled flowers, and the gold side was patterned in delicate cream colored waves. He stroked the wings of the bird with an admiring finger and was delighted to see the owl grandly flap its wings once more, as if preening.

The bird suddenly zoomed into his hair and, alarmed, he tried to wave it away. Before he could, however, a very familiar voice spoke into his ear. "Meet me outside the Great Hall. I want to talk to you."

The bird stopped flying and dropped lifeless into Draco's lap.

What was Reed thinking, he wondered, running the tiny owl through his fingers. The boy was proving to be more and more unfathomable by the minute. Harrison Reed, the boy from the robe shop, had been nothing more than an insufferable Mudblood, but ever since the afternoon's conversation he couldn't get the boy's baffling behavior out of his mind. It was like Reed was trying to be… friendly.

Draco ran his eyes over the rest of his Slytherin housemates. Turning his head, he then ran those contemplative gray eyes over the other House tables.

Slytherin House always liked to paint itself as superior. Superior in blood, superior in talent.

How else could they preserve their dignity in the face of the other three Houses' vilification?

Draco hated to admit it, but even as proud as he was to be a snake, the fact that three-quarters of the student population were already suspicious and derisive of his actions rankled. He only thought it would serve them right if he lived up to those expectations.

Some students held much stronger feelings against Slytherins than just contempt, however. His gaze lingered on another Slytherin first year, a boy named Theodore Nott, who'd been cornered by a few older Gryffindors just weeks after the sorting. Nott had been tight-lipped over the incident, but Draco knew from the bruises on his body that the boys had hardly been helping him with his books.

Draco's eyes darkened. Slytherins had to be tougher, rougher, meaner than the other Houses because that was the only way they could survive. He stroked his thumb over the owl in his hand, now conflicted. At least, that's what he always believed.

* * *

"You guys go on ahead."

"You sure?" Ron asked.

"Yeah, I need to look something up in the library for our History of Magic essay," Harry replied quickly.

"Ugh." Ron made a face. He sent Harry a pleading look. "Let me see your essay after you're done."

"Oh, me too!" Neville chimed in. "I've been sleeping so much in Binns, I'm completely lost."

Harry laughed. "Sure."

Making sure the two boys were walking out of sight, Harry hurriedly rushed to an alcove just off the side of the Great Hall. Standing behind a large statue, he stared at the Great Hall doors. Several minutes passed before Malfoy came out with a nebulous cloud of other Slytherins. The boy made his excuses to Lackey #1 and Lackey #2 and then stood alone, turning his head this way and that trying to find Harry.

Harry rolled up a piece of scrap parchment and threw it at the blonde boy's head.

"What the-!" Malfoy turned around wildly.

Harry waved sheepishly.

Malfoy marched over and then threw the ball of scrap straight at Harry.

Harry caught it neatly and gave Malfoy an apologetic wave of a hand.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes. "What's this about Reed?" The boy took the origami owl out of his pocket. "And what in magic's name is this?"

Harry smiled. "That's a messenger bird I made. I couldn't think of any other way to get your attention." Reaching out to take the bird, he held the green-gold owl to his lips and breathed new life into it, refreshing the charm. The bird's wings gave a mighty flap before flying back to a wide-eyed Malfoy.

Malfoy held out a finger for the bird to perch on. Giving the bird one last glance, he drawled, "That still doesn't answer my question. Why did you want to talk to me?"

Harry shrugged. "I wanted to ask if Snape punished you for what happened today."

Malfoy gave Harry a smug smile. "Far from it, Reed. He didn't even take off any points."

"That figures." Harry looked at Malfoy closely. "Anything else?"

"No." Malfoy's grey eyes became flinty with suspicion. "Why?"

Harry debated over whether or not to tell the boy he'd been made the Gryffindor Seeker. Taking a deep breath, he decided to just go for it.

"Because I wanted to thank you."

Harry smiled at Malfoy's flabbergasted expression.

"McGonagall was so impressed by that dive I made, she introduced me to the Gryffindor Quidditch captain and made me seeker on the spot. That wouldn't have happened if not for you."

Malfoy scowled. "So you called me here to brag, then."

Harry made a horrified noise. "No, no!"

He reached over to grab Malfoy's hand. "I meant what I said." Gazing earnestly at Malfoy with big green eyes, he tried to smooth Malfoy's ruffled feathers. "I sincerely wanted to thank you."

Malfoy looked incredulously down at their now clasped hands. The displaced green-gold owl flapped its jewel-toned wings in an annoyed manner, before making a new perch of their joined fingers.

"You're stranger than I thought." Malfoy's voice was soft.

Harry grinned. "Is that a bad thing?"

The boy's answering smile was slow and bore no trace of his usual hauteur.

* * *

The next day at breakfast a team of owls brought a long, thin package to the Gryffindor table. Harry crumbled the last of his bacon into pieces for the owls and read the card his parents had attached to the package.

 _We're so very proud of you, Harry! I knew this day would come._

 _Here's your broom. Your father refused to buy the new Nimbus 2000, even to celebrate, so you'll have to make do with your old Nimbus 1999. Maybe he'll change his mind once he sees you in action. Can't wait to see your first match!_

 _Hugs and kisses,_

 _Mum_

"Is that your broom, Harry?" Neville asked, drizzling honey into his oatmeal.

Tucking the card into his pocket, Harry nodded. "Yup. My parents must have sent it right after I called them."

"Is that what you do every night? Call your mum and dad?" Ron teased. "I thought you were talking to yourself."

Harry blushed. "I don't do it every night! I just wanted to tell them I was made Seeker, is all."

Neville gave Harry a curious look. "How do you call them, Harry?"

Harry pointed at his watch. "There's a two-way mirror in here."

"Ah."

There was an awkward pause. Harry felt guilt sink like a stone in his stomach. Harry could speak to his parents whenever he wanted, but while Neville's parents were alive, the boy could hardly talk to them, tortured into incoherence as they were.

Harry shrugged off his maudlin thoughts. Pitying Neville would only be disrespectful. He'd do better supporting Neville if the boy ever wanted to talk.

* * *

Harry's first Quidditch practice was a real eye-opener. He'd never played on a Quidditch team before, so while snatching the Snitch out of the sky came naturally to him, working with others was something entirely new.

Watching the three chasers, Angelina Johnson, Katie Bell, and Alicia Spinnet, make their plays was absolutely mesmerizing to him. The way the three coordinated together and made pass after pass seemed incredibly more complex than seeking.

With seeking, everything was single-minded. Finding the tiny speck of gold and chasing it down with everything you've got, there was no room for any other thought besides the Snitch. Even circling the other seeker, like two wild predators after the same prize, wasn't enough to distract from the goal: The little golden ball fluttering weakly, caught in your grasp.

After practice, Harry asked Wood if it was possible for him to try out as Chaser once Angelina and the others had graduated.

"I don't see why not." Wood removed his Keeper's gloves. "Do you have any chasing experience?"

Harry shook his head. "No, I've always been Seeker. But I'd like to give it a try."

Wood clapped Harry's shoulder. "A man after my own heart. I'm always trying something new when it comes to Quidditch. Always try to one up yourself, that's the key."

Harry didn't know if he was as dedicated to Quidditch as Wood was implying. Flying high above the team today, he just thought that being a Seeker was awfully lonely.

* * *

The Potions study group was coming along nicely. They'd had five meetings so far and even Snape could see that the Gryffindor 1st years were making progress. The man wouldn't admit it, of course, and was just as partial when it came to doling out points as ever, but at least he couldn't deduct House points as easily anymore.

Neville was the most improved. Under the tutelage of Harry's father, he'd gone from melting cauldrons left and right to producing passable potions regularly.

Snape had looked particularly sour as he commented on Neville's merrily bubbling potion the other day.

"I think it just about killed him to give you a compliment," Ron said as he crushed four lionfish spines with his mortar.

"I wished it really had killed him," muttered Dean Thomas darkly. Dean's last potion had been a thick, gloopy mess and Snape had banished it on the spot.

They were working on the Herbicide potion today in anticipation for next week's class.

About half of the Gryffindor first years' had showed up, which was only to be expected. No one wanted to do extra revision on a Saturday. Harry, Ron, and Neville were there, of course, since they were the ones who'd organized the study group in the first place. Hermione was the only other person to show up to every meeting. Ron had disparagingly remarked that it figured that the person least likely to be targeted by Snape for a failed potion would be the most punctual. The other Gryffindors tended to show up invariably after receiving a thorough tongue lashing from Snape.

"After crushing the lion spines, you must add three measures of the powder to your cauldron. Then wave your wand in a clockwise motion over the surface of the potion. Raise the flame and let it simmer until it just comes to a boil, then lower the heat. Let the potion brew until it becomes a deep olive green color."

Harry was the closest to the two-way mirror, having set the watch down beside him on a high stool at the front of the unused classroom, and he could see his father's face as he led them through the steps of the Herbicide potion.

His father used his own variant of the sonorus charm so they could all hear his directions clearly. He'd developed this variant to allow the listener to hear the speaker as if he were right in front of them, instead of blasting them indiscriminately like a muggle megaphone.

Hermione had been in absolute raptures at the idea. "Your parents sound so brilliant, Harry! Imagine, having a magical scientist as a father. Someone who creates their very own spells!"

Harry had shrugged, a little self-conscious. Trying to change the subject, he politely asked Hermione what her parents did.

"Oh, they're dentists." She'd said.

"Dentists?" Ron had asked, shooting Harry a questioning look.

"Basically, muggle torturers that get paid to pull people's teeth out with metal implements."

Ron gasped.

"Harry!" Hermione turned hurriedly to Ron. "That's not what they do at all." She gave Harry an offended glare. "Harry, tell him what dentists really do."

Harry sighed. "They're Muggle healers Ron."

Ron looked relieved. For a minute there, the boy's face had actually turned green. It had looked very strange, the green skin clashing with his red hair. "So they don't pull out people's teeth, then?"

"Well, not exactly –" Hermione had said, looking flustered.

Ron was aghast. "Your parents torture people for a living?"

"No, they do not!"

Harry had curled over, clutching his stomach, his face pinched tight in an effort to hold in his laughter.

* * *

Perhaps it was because he was now so busy, what with Quidditch practice three evenings a week, study group sessions every Saturday, secret chats with Malfoy every other day, not to mention all his homework, but Harry could hardly believe it when he realized that he'd already been at Hogwarts two months. He missed his parents and he missed his home, of course, but he honestly had never been happier. He now had two best friends – three if you counted Malfoy – he was learning so much magic, and every day was filled with new and exciting experiences.

On Halloween morning, they woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors. Even better, Professor Flitwick announced in Charms that he thought they were ready to start making objects fly.

Harry was partnered with Seamus, Neville was partnered with Pavarti Patil, who was pouting because she'd been separated from her Gryffindor twin, Lavender Brown, and Ron was partnered with Hermione.

Harry thought Ron's opinion of Hermione had improved from the time they'd spent together at each study group meeting, but he was wrong. Very wrong as it turned out.

After one too many corrections on his pronunciation by one Hermione Granger, Ron had just about had it and blew his flaming red top.

As Harry and Ron pushed their way into the crowded corridor after Charms, Ron loudly vented his frustrations. "The girl is an absolute menace! It's no wonder no one can stand her."

Someone knocked into Harry as they hurried past him. It was Hermione. Harry caught a glimpse of her face – and was startled to see that she was in tears.

* * *

Sitting at the Halloween feast, Harry exchanged notes with Malfoy in between bites of his baked potato.

Harry held the burnished bronze crane in his left hand and watched it unfold itself to reveal Malfoy's latest printed message.

 _I hate Halloween. It's so idiotic. Dumbledore replaced Samhain and its sacred traditions with this bloody stupid Muggle holiday just to cater to the Muggleborns. You know how Hogwarts used to celebrate this day? A communal altar would be built at the front of the Great Hall, and every student would create a candle that represented their dead ancestors, place it on the altar, and light it. After a moment of silence and prayer, the feast would begin. Everyone would have a plate set aside at table where you would place your choicest piece of meat, your most luscious fruit and you'd burn it as an offering for the dead before partaking in the meal yourself. Now tell me that doesn't seem more appropriate._

Harry hummed. Erasing the message with a wave of his wand, he wrote his own reply.

 _That does sound better than just a feast with some bats and pumpkins everywhere. I never celebrated Halloween much at home either. My parents never saw much point in dressing me up to go demand candy from strangers. Around this time, my mum and I would be lighting two candles for our altar. I never knew who they were for. My mum said it was for two people she'd never met, to thank them for what they've given her. Then we'd typically end the night with a bonfire. Last year my dad actually let me light it with magic. He had to help me with most of it, but it was pretty amazing. I had it almost ten feet high._

Lifting his quill from the paper, he watched the bird fold itself back up and fly towards the Slytherin table.

Once the feast had finished, Harry, Neville, and Ron stood up to leave with the rest of the Gryffindors.

Harry whispered to Ron from the corner of his mouth as they walked out of the Great Hall. "Hermione never showed up to the feast, did she? She even missed the rest of today's classes!"

Ron brushed the crumbs from his robes and didn't answer.

Harry told Neville to head on without them. Neville gave them both a curious look, but left without protest.

He pulled Ron into a deserted corridor. "Ron, this is serious. She was really upset. You should go apologize."

"Why should I apologize! I was only telling the truth. She shouldn't go around giving advice where she's not wanted." Ron scowled. "Not everyone needs to be as annoyingly overachieving as she is."

Harry shook his head. "She was crying, Ron. I don't care how annoying she is to you, you shouldn't have made her cry. She doesn't deserve that."

Ron stuffed his hands into his pockets and kicked the ground with his foot. Looking away, he muttered, "I didn't think she'd hear me."

Harry patted Ron's shoulder, glad the boy felt some regret over his actions. Taking his mother's map out of his pocket, he whispered, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

* * *

"I'm not going in there."

"This is where she is Ron!"

"It's a girls' bathroom."

"No one but Hermione is in there, and she's the one you have to apologize to!"

Harry pushed a still grumbling Ron though the bathroom door and waited outside.

Several minutes later, Harry took out the map again, trying to see if Finch was anywhere near them.

Once ten minutes had passed, Harry started snapping his watch open and closed with a sigh of frustration.

* * *

The bathroom door opened, jerking Harry out of his sleep. The brown-haired boy had been sitting on the floor, his back leaning against the wall, with his head pillowed on one arm.

"Did you apologize Ron?" Harry asked, looking between the two of them with sleepy eyes, his voice slightly slurred.

Ron coughed. "Yes."

Hermione sniffed. "It wasn't the best apology, but it'll do." The smile she gave was a bit wobbly at the corners, but Harry was reassured nonetheless.

All three of them started walking back to the Gryffindor dorms. Harry gave Ron a thumbs up behind Hermione's back. Ron answered with a thumbs up of his own, a weary grin on his face.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Here's another disclaimer in case any of you has forgotten. Anything even _remotely_ familiar probably isn't mine. **

**The First Match**

* * *

Tom and Harry had finished collecting the data for Tom's research a few days ago.

The results proved quite definitively that places of magic benefit from regular ritual practice. They'd both obtained reams and reams of scrolls from the archives of each Wizarding village they'd visited, all records of ritual activity. Tom had then measured each sampled site to gauge just how much ambient magical energy was produced. His findings were all very conclusive: the sites that had regular rituals performed every equinox were much more powerful than those who hosted fewer than three rituals every five years.

These results were consistent with Tom's earlier findings, but to please the journal review board, Tom had also devised more tests to measure exactly how much magic was produced from the use of specific rituals. Harry, quite used to helping Tom in his experiments, was the one to perform the rituals, and Tom was the one who recorded the magical output in standard MEUs (Magical Energy Units).

Most ritual magic had fallen out of favor with the rise of more convenient wand-based magic. Before the wand making process was perfected and made popular, most magical practice was communal, closely linked to nature, and impossible without some form of sacrifice. Whether that sacrifice be of the body, of the mind, of the spirit, or of the magic – which was closely linked to the health of all three. Wand-based magic had been adopted so quickly because it gave the average individual a chance to practice magic with comparatively less training and instruction, and it didn't require the user to sacrifice anything of themselves.

But that also meant wand magic was much weaker in many aspects. Rituals pooled the energy and power of the many. Rituals gained strength from natural occurrences like equinoxes, and moon phases. And the sacrifices made gave the magic a purpose, a force, unlike any other.

Most importantly, rituals held a finger on the pulse of Britain's magic. They maintained the ley lines that helped power all of Wizarding Britain. Rituals channeled, redirected, and replenished the magic found in the earth, sky, and sea. Without them, the natural wellsprings of magic that had been quietly augmenting wizard spells and young developing magical cores everywhere would slowly disappear. This was a fact that most modern British wizards and witches refused to acknowledge.

In recent years, rituals had acquired a tainted reputation that deterred many from practicing the discipline. Today's predominantly light social-political climate associated rituals with dark magic. The thought of ritual sacrifice was too disturbing to the general populace, who were so removed from their own ancient beginnings, they didn't realize that Wizarding Britain was founded on the very same gory rituals they so abhorred.

Tom knew that many would reject his paper out of hand, but enough of them would look at the reports of declining magical hotspots and wonder. And enough of them would turn around and start singing the praises of the very rituals they'd spent generations denouncing.

Tom could always rely on people's self-serving nature to play into his hands. And if that meant that he'd be saving the futures of the insipid sheep-like public, then so be it. He and Harry were committed to the life they've made for themselves here.

* * *

Harry and Tom were now getting ready to visit Hogwarts for the first Quidditch match of the season.

"Do you think anyone will recognize you?" Harry asked, staring at himself in the mirror and tucking his black hair into his fur hat. Turning his head this way and that, he ended up pulling some of his hair free to frame his face in a chic, faux bob.

"Dumbledore will have his suspicions, I'm sure," Tom replied, voice wry. Slipping on a pair of butter-soft leather gloves, he gave Harry a sardonic smile. "The man has always been unconscionably wary of me."

"Knowing you, I would think he had very good reason." Pressing their bodies together chest to chest, Harry played with the ends of Tom's untucked scarf. Looking up, he asked again, "Are you sure he'll notice? No one has ever seen an adult Tom Riddle. Or at least not one so aged and untouched by Voldemort's … modifications."

Tom placed his hands on Harry's hips. "Oh, I doubt Dumbledore has forgotten this face, even after all these years."

There was a long, contemplative silence.

Harry pulled the scarf tighter suddenly, creating a vice grip around Tom's throat. "I know you and Dumbledore like to play these games," he said, green eyes ominously bright, "but don't you dare bring our baby boy into this."

Tom smiled and raised a hand to loosen Harry's hold. Wrapping long fingers around a deceptively delicate wrist, he kissed the long faded lightning bolt scar on Harry's forehead.

"Do give me some credit."

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Reed had given prior notice via owl weeks ago, as per Hogwarts policy, so the faculty was all well aware that Harrison Reed's parents were planning a visit to see their child play in the first Quidditch match of the season.

This show of parental support wasn't uncommon. In fact, many parents were often _too_ enthusiastic when it came to their child's Quidditch performance. Coming to every game wasn't enough for those parents, they had to harass Madame Hooch and the House Quidditch captains as well.

Today, however, the Reeds were the only parents in attendance, and since they were an essentially unknown variable, many of the more curious professors had planted themselves in front of the Headmaster's fireplace in anticipation of their arrival.

The Headmaster was cheerful as ever, hands clasped in front of his long beard, thumbs twiddling. Professor McGonagall was there as well, of course, to welcome the Reeds as both Deputy Headmistress and Harrison Reed's Head of House. Professor Flitwick and Professor Black, as the more sociable and amiable professors, were also present since the two liked familiarizing themselves with the parents of their students. Professor Snape was the final professor in the room, and he was there mainly out of reluctant interest.

After weeks of baffled frustration, he'd finally discovered the secret to his first year Gryffindors' astonishing improvement. Reed and his two friends, Weasley and Longbottom, had formed a Potions study group for all the Gryffindors in their year. From what he'd overheard, it had all been Reed's idea. Snape gave the boy his grudging respect. Anyone who could remedy the disaster that was a cauldron-commandeering Longbottom deserved it, as much as he hated to admit a failing of any kind within his own teaching methods. And now he was here to see what Reed's parents were like, to be able to raise a boy like him. A boy who could change the name of the game entirely with something as simple as a study group when years and years of Gryffindors had resigned themselves to Snape's hellish instruction.

The fireplace flames flickered a bright green, and two figures appeared amid the flurry of verdant sparks. A tall man dressed in sobering but exquisitely tailored black robes and wine colored scarf stepped out first, his face a classic composition of handsomely chiseled features and dark, intelligent eyes. He held an arm out for his wife, who was the picture of Parisian elegance in a grey fur hat and matching charcoal colored cape coat. Her features were less classically beautiful and more dynamic, with a stubborn chin and large, indelibly green eyes. The two were both dark haired and pale, the woman only slightly more sun-kissed, and they made an exceedingly well-suited couple.

"Welcome to Hogwarts!" Black barked excitedly.

Flitwick was about to follow suit in declaring his own greetings, but McGonagall stepped forward and slapped the back of Black's head, interrupting before he could. Pulling the abashed Professor Black away by the nape of his robes, not unlike a mother cat with a wayward kitten, she tipped her head deferentially at the Headmaster.

Dumbledore only chuckled. "Yes, just as Professor Black oh so enthusiastically put it, welcome to Hogwarts."

Meeting Mr. Reed's eyes, he paused for one indiscernible moment before moving on. "It's always a pleasure to meet the parents and guardians of our beloved students. As we are given the important task of educating your progeny, maintaining an open channel of communication between us, the instructors, and you, the parents, is only in all our best interests."

"Indeed." Mr. Reed nodded, an agreeable smile on his face, before turning to the other members of faculty lined up just to the left of Dumbledore. "And you are all Harrison's professors, I presume. How is he faring in each of your classes?"

McGonagall stepped forward, straightening her glasses with the tip of one finger. "He's a diligent student and does fairly well in my Transfigurations class. He has a good grasp of the theory, and all his essays are clear, to the point, and well thought out. But from what I've observed, his real strength seems to lie in the practical demonstrations."

Flitwick bobbed his head up and down, squeaking, "Yes, I've noticed that as well! In Charms, he's always one of the first to finish the exercise."

Black gave both Reeds a grin, white teeth flashing. "I dare say that he's the best in his year when it comes to Defense, and my class is all about the practical side of it, so it must come as no surprise."

After a short pause and several looks, Snape stepped forward as the last professor to give his opinion on the development of the Reeds' son. "In Potions, the boy is tolerable." Lips curling a bit, he added drily, "But it seems he spends more time concerning himself with the progress of his peers than that of his own."

"Oh?" Mrs. Reed asked, her voice high with surprise. Her brows arched quizzically. "I was under the impression that my son formed his study group because many of the Gryffindor students were having trouble understanding your instruction."

Snape's lips thinned. Black gave a bark of laughter before McGonagall shushed him disapprovingly.

"Well, in any case, I'm glad Harrison was asked to join the Quidditch team." Mrs. Reed gave McGonagall a beaming smile. "All work and no play is no way for a boy to spend his childhood."

"Yes, I think I made the right choice in asking Harrison to join the Gryffindor team." McGonagall gave Mrs. Reed a rare smile of her own. "Of course, today's match will be the judge of that."

Dumbledore turned to motion the Reeds towards a door to the side of the Headmaster's office. "The match doesn't start for a while yet, so please, make yourselves comfortable. Professor McGonagall will be by later to take you to the stands. You will be joining us in the faculty box, which I assure you has the very best view."

The Reeds walked into the well-appointed waiting room and closed the door behind them. Settling into a plush, white loveseat, they turned to each other with considering eyes.

* * *

Tom lifted one hand and made a sideways slashing motion, erecting a small privacy ward. "As I thought, Dumbledore did suspect. The man attempted to legilimize me the second our eyes met." He smirked. "He didn't succeed of course."

"Did he know you were shielding him?" Harry queried, a worried frown on his face.

Tom curled an arm around Harry and brought the younger man to rest against his side. "I let him have at my surface thoughts and planted a few screen memories for him to peruse." Tom arched a brow down at Harry, who was resting his head against Tom's chest. "What about you?"

"He tried to legilimize me as well. I thought it'd be better to avoid his gaze entirely than to present him with an outright block." Harry traced circles onto Tom's robes with an idle finger, huffing, "I'm not as good an Occlumens as you are. I can't pretend as if I'm not rejecting his presence within my mind with every ounce of my body."

Tom sighed. "Well, you can just play the demure flower when you're with him, then."

 ****Harry wrinkled his nose.

* * *

Both Reeds were settled in the faculty box by half past ten, sat comfortably in between Professor McGonagall and Professor Black.

Black turned towards them both good-naturedly. "A fine day for a match, isn't it?"

The air was bracing, and a chilling wind whipped past every so often to steal your breath away. But, indeed, the sky was clear with nary a cloud to be seen. Perfect conditions for flying.

Mrs. Reed nodded cheerfully in agreement. "It sure is!" It was cold enough for her breaths to be visible, appearing as little white puffs in the air. The tips of her ears and nose were cherry red.

Mr. Reed tsked softly and wrapped his scarf around her. She beamed at him before standing and leaning over the railing of the faculty box.

Black thought this interaction rather adorable. Most wizards would have just used a heating charm, but there was something about Mr. Reed's unsolicited, gentlemanly offering of his own scarf that Black found quaint and charming.

Over by the rail, Mrs. Reed exclaimed at the sight of the frost covered pitch.

"Tom, oh look at this!" She waved her husband over in excitement. "The ground is probably frozen solid, huh?" She gave a low whistle. "That's going to hurt."

Black gave an incredulous bark of laughter. And most mothers would be wringing their hands at this point, not pointing out all the different ways their children could potentially go splat.

Mr. Reed gave a small sigh, but the corners of his lips were quirked in evident amusement. "Forgive my wife, Professor. As a Quidditch player herself, she's used to treating the threat of injury very lightly."

He paused.

"Actually, I'll amend that last statement," He said, mouth rueful but eyes smiling. "As a _fairly reckless person_ , my wife is conditioned to react to threats of bodily harm with excitement and _glee_."

The man gave one last smile before standing to join his wife at the railing. Mrs. Reed turned towards him, her fingers pointing at the tall Quaffle hoops in the distance. The man then proceeded to nod indulgently through his wife's enthusiastic ramblings while tucking a flying piece of hair behind the woman's ear.

Black chuckled. These two were definitely interesting. They reminded him a little of James and Lily, he thought to himself, wistful. The wife had James fun-loving spark and sense of adventure while the husband was more like Lily. Someone level-headed, but loving enough to weather their partner's storms and serve as a counter-balance.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the locker room, Harry and the rest of the team were changing into their scarlet Quidditch robes.

Harry was the smallest person there, and he donned his own specially adjusted uniform with a flutter of nervous anticipation in his belly. This was the first Quidditch match of the season. Gryffindor against Slytherin. All these weeks of practice had been leading up to this moment. He gulped.

Wood cleared his throat for silence.

"Okay, men," he said.

"And women," said Chaser Angelina Johnson.

"And women," Wood agreed. "This is it."

"The big one," said Fred Weasley.

"The one we've all been waiting for," said George.

"We know Oliver's speech by heart," Fred told Harry, "we were on the team last year."

Harry laughed, all his earlier nervousness seeming to fly away. He sent the twins a thankful glance for relieving the tension. The two may act like jesters, but behind their joking faces was something very observant and thoughtful, he was sure.

George noticed him watching and gave a wink. Fred stuck out his tongue.

At least, he was pretty sure.

"Shut up, you two," said Wood. "This is the best team Gryffindor's had in years. We're going to win. I know it."

He glared at them all as if to say, "Or else."

"Right. It's time. Good luck, all of you."

* * *

The teams walked out onto the field to loud cheers.

Harry looked up at the stands and noticed a banner with his name on it being held up by the Gryffindor first-year boys. He blushed, embarrassed but pleased they had gone to all the trouble.

Hermione was there too, holding up a little red and gold flag. After Ron's apology, she'd been hanging out with their group more and more.

Harry gave a look at the Slytherin section of the stands, his eyes seeking out a pale-blond head, even though he knew there was no chance the boy would be rooting for him. When he found him, he gaped open-mouthed.

The boy was wearing a golden origami crown on his head, topped with little red and green jewel-like ornaments. Or well, knowing him, they could have been actual jewels. Harry shook his head in bemused disbelief. The boy was waving a Slytherin flag, so everyone around him knew he was, of course, supporting his own House. Only Harry would recognize that the crown wasn't a sign of Malfoy's noted vanity, but actually a sign of support for Harry.

Madam Hooch was stood in the middle of the field waiting for the two teams, her broom in her hand. She'd be the referee for this match.

"Now, I want a nice fair game, all of you," she said, once they were all gathered around her.

Harry tried not to look intimidated by the sheer bulk of the Slytherin team, but it was awfully difficult. He tightened his grip on his broom where it had gone slack with nervous sweat.

In Quidditch, size doesn't matter, he reminded himself. The only thing that mattered was speed.

And he was the fastest one here.

He was sure of it.

"Mount your brooms, please."

Harry clambered onto his Nimbus 1999.

Madam Hooch gave a loud blast of her silver whistle.

Fifteen brooms rose up, high, high, into the air. They were off.

* * *

Lee Jordan was a good commenter, Harry thought, keeping half an eye on the game happening down below, and half an eye out for the snitch. The boy followed the game closely and never seemed to miss a thing. His voice also kept the spectators revved up and engaged. If only he were a tad less Gryffindor-biased, Harry thought, regretfully.

Spotting a glitter of gold near the top box, Harry rushed forwards. The Slytherin seeker was still searching somewhere far below him. But as he neared the box, the Snitch flew off again. Harry was about to turn around in pursuit when he saw his parents waving out of the corner of his eye. His mother was stood on tiptoes and jumping, oblivious to the stares she was getting from Snape. His father was beside her, sitting properly in his own seat, and he mouthed "Go get it" when he saw Harry watching. Flushing to the tips of his ears, he waved back before hurrying after the Snitch.

He knew his parents were going to be watching today, but actually seeing their faces still gave him a surprised jolt. He clenched a fist.

It made him want to fly that much faster.

Then, Harry saw it.

A streak of gold, close to the Quidditch pitch ground.

He launched himself into a dive. Slytherin seeker, Terence Higgs, had seen it too. Neck and neck they hurtled toward the Snitch - all the Chasers seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be doing as they hung in midair to watch.

Harry was faster than Higgs - he could see the little round ball, wings fluttering, darting up ahead - he put on an extra burst of speed -

 _WHAM!_ A roar of rage echoed from the Gryffindors below - Marcus Flint, the Slytherin Captain, had blocked Harry on purpose, and Harry's broom spun off course, Harry holding on for dear life.

"Foul!" roared the Gryffindors.

Madam Hooch spoke angrily to Flint and then ordered a free shot at the goal posts for Gryffindor. But in all the confusion, of course, the Golden Snitch had disappeared from sight again.

"So - after that obvious and disgusting bit of cheating - "

"Jordan!" growled Professor McGonagall.

"I mean, after that open and revolting foul - "

 _"Jordan, I'm warning you - "_

"All right, all right. Flint nearly kills the Gryffindor seeker, which could happen to anyone, I'm sure, so a penalty to Gryffindor, taken by Spinnet, who puts it away, no trouble, and we continue play, Gryffindor still in possession."

And on it went.

Harry, still winded from that close call, had drifted off to the side of the pitch. As he caught his breath and tried to calm his racing heart, he felt something brush against the back of his head. Reaching back to get it off, he blinked when he felt the soft flutter of wings.

He turned around. It was the Snitch.

He reached up in a daze and closed his fingers around the golden ball, which seemed to nuzzle into the embrace of his hand.

He stared at it, not believing his good luck, for a few good seconds before raising his arm and yelling, "I've got the Snitch!"

The crowd roared.

* * *

Gryffindor won by one hundred and seventy points to sixty.

After catching the Snitch, Harry had been rushed by his teammates and pulled into a huge group hug, ears still blasted by all the noise and general excitement coming from the stands.

As people started to file out, Harry was about to join the rest of the Gryffindor team in the locker room when he heard his name called.

Whipping his head around, he gave a loud _"Mmph!"_ at the heat-seeking missile that was his Mother running to take him into an exuberant embrace. It was the second time he'd been tackled today. Or maybe third if you counted Flint, Harry thought dizzily.

"That was amazing, Harry!" His mother pulled back, her hands still on his shoulders. Her smile was radiant with pride.

Harry gave a shaky grin. "What? Catching a Snitch that was basically flying still?" He dug his foot into the ground sheepishly. "I wanted you to watch a better first match from me, honestly."

"What are you saying, Harry?" His mother chided softly, tilting his chin up. Harry met her shining green eyes reluctantly. "Quidditch isn't all guts and glory. Sometimes we have to take the gifts handed to us gracefully, or else the Gods of Quidditch will think we're being ungrateful."

She rubbed at the dirt and dust streaked across his cheek with the side of her thumb, before picking up his small hand in hers and turning it over. Fingering the new calluses from all the added Quidditch practice, she murmured, "And isn't this proof of how hard you've worked?"

Harry bit his lip and encircled his arms around his mother's waist fiercely. He felt the warm palm of his mother's hand coming to rest on the top of his head.

This was what he was searching for, amid all the praises and cheers of congratulations people had heaped upon him. Some sign that yes, this wasn't a fluke. That he had actual skill. Some sign of reassurance.

"Tom!" his mother called. "Where are you?"

"Right here."

Harry lifted his head to see his father some ways behind them walking calmly at a sedate pace.

"You're too damn slow."

His mother's complaints rolled off his father like water as he slowed to a stop in front of them. "Some of us prefer to walk through a crowd like civilized people. Unlike others who'd rather shove and push."

His father clasped his shoulder gently. "You flew well."

Harry grinned. The words meant a lot, coming from a man as uninterested in Quidditch as his father. The fact that he'd sat through an hour and a half in the frigid cold for a game he didn't even care for was proof enough that his father loved him.

"It must have been difficult. Especially after that one boy rammed into you." Brown-red eyes gleamed a little in the afternoon light. "What was his name again?"

His mother slapped his father's chest. "Oh hush, you."

"Umm...excuse us."

The three turned around from their conversation, surprised.

"Everyone's already left," Hermione said. Ron and Neville stood beside her, their faces curious.

"Oh, we've been keeping your friends waiting!" His mother cried, tone fretful but face clearly delighted.

 ****Harry groaned inwardly. He'd been telling his parents about his friends, but now that they'd seen them in the flesh, he knew he'd be in for a whole new round of teasing.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** Well, I'm too late for Christmas, but the next chapter should be in time for Yule, so...yay?

* * *

 **What We Find In the Snow**

* * *

Harry introduced his parents and friends to each other with a little sigh, but some part of him felt a little proud too. These were his friends, the first friends he'd ever had, and showing his parents how much progress he's made since coming to Hogwarts was very satisfying.

His mother was cooing over his three friends with the biggest smile on her face. "Oh, look at you all! So adorable in your little robes and scarves!" Ron and Neville blushed beet red as she circled them, confused by her fashionable, high-society air juxtaposed with her mother hen clucking.

Hermione gave a little gasp as his mother took her hand and started twirling her. "First years are absolutely tiny, aren't they?" She marveled. She spun the bewildered girl round and round, causing Hermione's robes to flare out like the skirt of a princess' ballgown.

"Mum! You're making them uncomfortable!" Harry exclaimed, cheeks puffed up with irritation.

Tom gave a pointed cough from his place on the sidelines, shoulders shaking slightly with mirth though there was no trace of laughter on his composed face.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Harriet finished the twirl with a little flourish and then set Hermione back down on her now unsteady feet. Hermione looked both dizzy and enchanted, all at the same time. Ron and Neville just looked highly bemused.

"I'm just so happy to be meeting all of you." She clutched the three youngsters to her chest in a sudden embrace. Letting them go just as suddenly, she addressed them all with one last glowing smile. "Thanks for taking care of our Harry."

"Muuum," Harry groaned, now thoroughly embarrassed.

"Oh no, Mrs. Reed, it was no trouble at all!" Hermione replied, an uncharacteristic squeak to her voice.

Neville nodded furiously beside her. "I-I should b-be thanking Harry. He's been helping me so much with my p-potions, and m-my casting, and - well...everything really."

"Yeah, Mrs. Reed, we don't need your gratitude," Ron added. "I mean, we're friends with Harry because we like him, after all." The boy swiped under his nose self-consciously and folded his arms casually behind his head to hide the tips of his flaming ears as he said this.

"Is that right, " His mother murmured softly. She had a wistful look on her face, but her eyes were infinitely soft as she gazed down at the three children. The three children in question gave each other puzzled looks but found their eyes immediately drawn back to the woman's indelible green stare. It looked as if whole worlds could be born under that green gaze, as immovable and ancient as Mother Nature herself. Like each of their flaws and failures meant nothing, in the grand scheme of things. But instead of making them feel small and insignificant, the viridescent eyes seemed to say _'I see you. I see all that you are, and all that you will be, and I love you.'_

"Well, dear, it looks as if we've mortified our son enough for one day." Tom cut in, eyes unreadable but voice kind.

His smooth baritone brought Harry's mother out of her strange mood and she ruffled her son's brown hair with a laugh. "Oh, it'll never be enough. Not while I live and breathe."

The two gave their last goodbyes before heading back up to the castle to floo home.

Harry turned to his friends apologetically. "Sorry for that." He laughed uncomfortably. "You guys are the first real friends I've ever made, so my mum's pretty excited."

Unbeknownst to Harry, his words had a profound effect on the other three children, who themselves were no strangers to loneliness.

Hermione had been ostracized by other children her age all her life because of her bookish ways. She'd been labeled every name in the book, from teachers pet to insufferable know-it-all. But while she knew other children found her an annoying pest, she hadn't wanted to change. She hadn't wanted to stifle her own love of learning. Hadn't wanted to trade her books for a head full of air and a mouth full of lies. Because she knew throwing away everything that she was to make people like her would've been the worst lie she could've ever told. A lie that would've broken her spirit and made her a bitter old woman years before her time. That's why she had been so excited for Hogwarts. She'd hoped she could find people that were like her or, if not that, then at least friends that would accept her for who she was.

Neville had grown up under very similar circumstances though in his case much of his isolation and ensuing social awkwardness could be attributed to his overbearing and confidence crippling grandmother. Having your every move, your every decision, your every thought carefully judged and criticized by someone who was constantly comparing you to their highly successful Auror son - who was also your tragically absent father - had nipped any potential Neville would've had right in the bud. And as you could imagine, a boy so downtrodden and timid as Neville would not have left a favorable impression on his pureblood playdates. This meant Neville had grown up friendless and alone but for his toad, Trevor, and the plants that he'd taken up as a hobby. Plants were so comfortingly simple. You get back exactly what you put in. If you cared for them properly, they'd reward you, and watching the physical proof of their affection grow right before his eyes had saved him time and time again. But plants and a toad couldn't replace a flesh and blood friend, and the idea of Hogwarts had filled Neville's heart with both fear and anticipation.

Ron had no lack of companionship, growing up with a houseful of siblings, but he'd always wanted a friend of his very own. Someone who'd be able to pick him out in a crowd and whose first words wouldn't be "Weasley" or "Bill's brother" or "Charlie's brother" or "Percy's brother" or "Fred and George's brother", but _"Ron."_ Just Ron. Someone who wouldn't try to mentally see how Ron measured up to his older brothers, someone who wouldn't be disappointed if he failed. Someone who'd listen to Ron's dreams of making his own mark and say, "You can do it" and in that same instance "But you don't have to." And while Hogwarts was colored with his family's past achievements, and Ron had been wishing with all his heart that he'd be painting Hogwarts with his own colors, what he'd wished for most of all was to be able to find that someone.

All of these wishes, all of these hopes, were remarkably similar. All four of them had been searching. Searching for recognition, for understanding, for acceptance, for companionship.

And staring at each other on that frost covered pitch, with their breaths like white puffs in the air, and their cheeks red with more than cold, it seemed these four lonely children had found all that they were searching for.

* * *

Harry told the three of them to head on up to the castle instead of waiting for him to change. Eager to move past the poignant moment and reestablish their normal, relaxed atmosphere the other three readily agreed.

Harry watched them walk away with a heart that was both heavy with the force of his earlier emotions, and yet light with gladness.

He was about to trudge back into the locker rooms when he spotted an unmistakable pale blonde head. Malfoy was hiding behind the low hanging branches of a snow-covered tree, and there was no question as to who he was waiting for.

Breaking into a quick run, he approached the boy with a grin. "What are you doing here?"

"I don't need to explain myself to you," Malfoy sniffed.

A pause passed between them before they both burst into laughter.

It was amazing how close they'd become over the course of their secret correspondence. The theatrics of Malfoy's past enmity were more hilarious than anything now. There was no comparison, really.

Harry stifled a last chuckle and composed himself, musing at how drastically different a pureblood can be when their guard wasn't up. But he guessed that wearing your heart on your sleeve wasn't the smartest of strategies when even the smallest of mistakes could cost you your family fortune or reputation. People of consequence had more to lose, so their paranoia wasn't entirely unwarranted.

Though that doesn't excuse bigotry and cruelty, Harry thought. And on that note, Harry planned to have Malfoy apologize to Neville at some point. Once he could find an opportunity to introduce his two friends properly, of course.

"So really, why are you here?" Harry asked. "I thought the Slytherins were the first to leave."

Malfoy shook his head, voice playfully mocking. "What, you think your petty victory was such a blow to Slytherin pride?" The blonde's chest expanded to show off all the might of the boy's scrawny, eleven-year-old body at the words 'Slytherin pride.'

Harry snickered.

Malfoy settled a bit and threw Harry a sincere smile. "In all seriousness, I'm actually here to congratulate you."

Harry was touched.

"I mean really, ramming you like that...there's Quidditch and then there's manslaughter." The boy shook his head. "Recovering from that and catching the Snitch afterward isn't an easy feat."

"Thanks."

Malfoy kicked at the snow, surprising Harry with the sudden movement. "I just wish Flint would realize that Slytherin shouldn't have to resort to such shameful tactics." The boy had a bright, steely, glint to his gray eyes. "That wasn't strategy. That wasn't _cunning_. That wasn't even quick-thinking. That was blunt, obvious, and not to mention plain stupid. Committing an outrageous foul and near-killing your opponent in clear view of so much opposition? What's so Slytherin about that?"

Harry gave Malfoy a considering look, before tilting his head to the side, as if seeing the blonde boy for the first time. "If you feel so strongly about it, maybe there's something you could do..."

"What?"

"You could join the Quidditch team next year." Harry smiled slowly at the gobsmacked expression on Malfoy's face. "Reform them from within. Make them the strongest team around and prove everyone wrong." He paused. "Well, strongest team after Gryffindor."

"Shut up, Reed." Malfoy pushed Harry's shoulder, before pausing, an uncertain look on his face. "You think I could really do that?"

"Why not?"

"Easy for you to say, Mr. Youngest-Seeker-in-a-Century," Malfoy sneered.

Harry sighed. Malfoy did this a lot. Hiding his own uncertainty with bravado, sneers, and hurtful words. What would it take for him to realize it was okay to be vulnerable? To show he cared - that he was affected by something and was afraid?

"Well, why don't you become the Second-Youngest-Seeker-in-a-Century?" Harry said, tone light, half-whimsical and half-serious.

Malfoy scoffed. "I'm not going to become the second anything, Reed. A Malfoy is always first."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Then don't go for Seeker." He gave a little hum and started pacing back and forth in front of the tree as he thought. "You must have noticed that those muscle-bound Chasers you guys have were no match against the Chasers on the Gryffindor team. Angelina, Katie, and Alicia are way faster and have better teamwork." Harry turned around with a sparkle in his verdant green eyes. "You can join the team as a Chaser and make them ten times better than they are now!"

"A Chaser, huh..."

Malfoy's voice sounded doubtful, but Harry was getting more and more excited about the idea. "Remember us fighting to get Neville's Remembrall? Me racing after you, trying to get the ball out of your hands, you doing all you could to stop me? Isn't that what chasing is all about?" Harry beamed. "And this works out perfectly since I'm planning on trying out as Chaser once Angelina and the others have graduated."

Malfoy looked a bit more enthusiastic now. "I have a better shot at getting the Chaser spot anyway. Terence is a second-year so there's fat chance of him relinquishing the Seeker position anytime soon. And it's true that our Chasers are absolute shite."

At Harry's disbelieving stare, Malfoy just sighed. "Well, having House pride doesn't mean I don't have eyes."

Harry smiled. "So you're trying out next year, then?"

Malfoy smirked. "What, scared of the competition Reed?"

Harry whooped. Throwing his arm around Malfoy's neck, he said, "Then we better start training you up!"

Malfoy made an outraged noise at the thought that he'd need training, but what Harry will never realize is how grateful Malfoy was in that moment. How grateful he was to have someone who believed in him.

* * *

That frosty day on the pitch was only a taste of what Winter had in store for Hogwarts. The lake was now frozen solid and the grounds were covered with a blanket of pure, white snow that proved irresistible to the masses of students inside.

The Weasley twins were the first to start throwing snowballs around though they reserved most of their pranking energy for charming snow down their brother Percy's pants.

The Gryffindor 1st year boys started having snowball fights of their own, and after Hermione Granger was denied a chance to join on account of her gender ("Girls can't fight, they'd be slaughtered" - Seamus' exact words), an insulted Pavarti and Lavender soon joined Hermione in making the boys eat those words along with a good helping of snow.

The snowball fights became so popular among the Gryffindor 1st years that 1st years in other Houses started entering the fray. It became an all-out snowball war, House against House.

The only problem was, Slytherin wasn't invited.

Harry was contemplating different ways to resolve this issue as he used _wingardium leviosa_ to fling rows of snowballs off the ramparts of Gryffindor's ice fortress. He looked around himself carefully. Ron was off in the battle turret, firing snowballs from Hermione's transfigured snow cannon. Hermione was directing their ground force with all the fury and belligerence of a Muggle drill sergeant. Neville was reinforcing the fortress' right side, which had been hit by the Ravenclaw's missile.

Perfect opportunity.

Taking out a small origami messenger bird from his robe pocket, Harry whispered into the spider-lily patterned paper, infusing the bird with his magic along with his message. _Draco, have all the Slytherin 1st years come down to the courtyard. There's a snowball war going on between the Houses, but it wouldn't be complete without you snakes._

The scarlet red hawk gave a mighty flap before twisting out of Harry's hand and taking to the skies.

* * *

"Hey, what is that?" Ron exclaimed, eyes squinting against the glare of the afternoon sun bouncing off the expanse of reflective snow. "Is that _Malfoy_? And all the other Slytherins!"

"Why are _they_ here?" Dean scowled.

"Well, since they're on Gryffindor territory let's give them a proper greeting..." Seamus started firing up his own snow bazooka. (Hermione and the Ravenclaws had gone a bit overboard in their transfigured snow arms-race...The Hufflepuffs had been ridiculously outmatched, and their fortress was now a pitiful pile of snow ruins.)

Harry bit his thumb anxiously. He'd told Draco to come join the snowball fight, but he hadn't expected the blonde to come straight to the Gryffindor base with the rest of the Slytherins.

"Wait, Seamus! They're waving a white flag," Hermione pointed out.

"Flag? That's a Slytherin scarf on a stick!" Ron cried. "They're mocking us!"

Harry tried to be the voice of reason. "Even so, what Gryffindors would we be if we were to shoot defenseless people without giving them a chance to explain themselves?"

Seamus lowered his bazooka with a pout, and the other Gryffindors nodded at Harry's words reluctantly.

The Slytherin 1st years walked up the steps of the fortress unmolested, and Draco stepped forward as their spokesperson.

Hermione spoke for the Gryffindors in an imperious tone. "What do you want, Slytherins?" Harry was surprised she was so into this. She'd taken to the position of command with obvious relish.

Draco raised both hands diplomatically. "We propose an alliance."

"An alliance!?"

"Hush, Ron!" Hermione hissed. She turned back to the amused Slytherins and affected a deeper, authoritative voice. "Why should we accept an alliance from you?"

"Because we've both seen the Ravenclaw fortress. It's nigh impregnable, none of your cannon shots has given it even so much as a scratch." Draco raised an eyebrow and gestured to the rest of the Slytherin 1st years behind him, all armed to the teeth with icicle sharp weapons. "And my troops are fresh while yours are weary from battle."

Hermione stroked the hairs of an imaginary beard.

* * *

And so it came to be that, for one glorious afternoon, Gryffindor and Slytherin joined forces.

It didn't last long, however, because as soon as Ravenclaw was thoroughly defeated, Gryffindor and Slytherin turned their sights on each other.

And a more epic snowball fight Hogwarts never did see.

* * *

By mid-December everyone was ready and waiting for the holidays to start.

Ron was staying at Hogwarts with his brothers because his parents were off in Romania visiting Ron's brother Charlie, so only Hermione and Neville were with Harry on the train to King's Cross.

He'd already said goodbye to Draco earlier, and the boy had told Harry he'd been mentioning him in his letters for months. Draco said his parents had been staunchly against it at first, but the blonde had worn them down, and they would be sending Harry's family an invitation to the annual Malfoy Yule Ball in a few days. Harry wasn't sure what to think about this, knowing the type to frequent these parties and their opinions about people of less than sterling blood-status, but at least it gave Harry and Draco a chance to see each other over the winter hols.

Stepping onto the train platform, and leaping into his father's arms, Harry put all his worries aside.

He was home.

* * *

 **A/N:** You know all the Heads of Houses were watching the snowball fight with binoculars. You just know it. Particularly Snape, Siri, and McGonagall haha. (In this fic Sirius kind of acts as an honorary Head of House, so that's why I'm including him here. Plus you know he'd be totally into this.)

Dumbledore was probably just ho-ho-ho-ing it away at all the inter-house unity. (See what I did there?)


	14. Chapter 14

**A Present By Any Other Name**

* * *

Hermione's parents hadn't arrived yet, and seeing that the girl was biting her lip raw with worry, the Reeds decided to stay with her until her parents came to pick her up. The group made their way past the mob of reuniting families and found a corner near the platform entrance to wait.

Harry's father cast a sound muffling charm into the air around them and his mother transfigured an oblong pebble into a long, padded bench. The four of them made themselves comfortable, his mother conjuring little throw pillows, each more colorful and needlessly elaborate than the next, and his father passed around a thermos of hot tea from his mother's bottomless handbag.

Hermione peppered his parents with questions about each piece of magic his parents had just performed, her mouth going a mile a minute. His parents looked at each other in bemusement through the rapid flurry of questions, comments, and tangential asides and Harry had to hide a laugh.

His mother stopped the girl with a smile. "Hermione, it's wonderful to see you so curious and enthusiastic about learning more magic but... you don't have to try so hard." Her eyebrows were furrowed in concern. "These things will come naturally with time."

"That's the thing, I don't feel like I have any time," Hermione said, her fingers worrying at the tassels of a bright turquoise throw pillow. "The other students are so far ahead… they've known about magic their entire lives, they must know so much about how it can be used and what you can do with it - so much valuable information that you can't learn from school or from books, but that you have to _live_."

"I think you're sorely overestimating the attention span and willpower of the average child," his mother laughed.

Harry waved an errant hand. "Yeah Hermione, don't even worry about it."

"But I do worry!" Hermione cried. "I want to be the best witch I can possibly be, I don't want to lose out just because I'm a muggleborn."

"Recognizing the areas in which you are lacking and wanting to better yourself is admirable," his father said, "but you should also recognize your own strengths." He addressed Harry with a turn of his head. "What do you always say about your friend Hermione?"

Harry brightened. "That she's the best in our year!"

His father raised an eyebrow at Hermione. "Your classmates may have been born into this society, but opportunities given and ill-used are opportunities wasted." He regarded her seriously for a moment. "Take in as much knowledge as you can, but don't let an inferiority complex be the thing that drives you."

The girl glanced down at her shoes, her bushy hair hiding her face.

Harry blinked. An inferiority complex… Hermione? The brightest, most talented witch in their class? How was that possible?

And what sort of friend was he to miss something so important when his dad could deduce it in a matter of minutes?

His mother wrapped an arm around Hermione's shoulders and the girl looked up slowly, gaze drawn to the woman's encouraging smile. "My husband isn't reprimanding you, Hermione, he just wants you to be more confident."

Hermione looked up at his father in surprise.

The warmth in the man's eyes reassured her. "Take pride in your talent and ability," he said, and the light caught his flash of a smile, "and soon no one will question your worth."

Hermione seemed to take his words to heart, eyes bright and determined, her shoulders lifting from their dejected slump.

Hermione's parents soon arrived and they thanked the Reeds profusely for looking after their daughter before leaving in a flurry of bustling activity. Harry watched them go quietly, thinking over his past interactions with Hermione with new understanding.

Hermione was incredibly smart, not just because of the hours of extra work she put in, but because she was a genius. But the girl never seemed to rest. She always pushed herself to the limit frantically, as if life was a never-ending test she had to study for – one she was in danger of failing. He had thought Hermione was a perfectionist like his father, someone who liked to plan for every scenario and control for every variable, but the words "inferiority complex" cast her behavior in a new, distressing light.

If you always measured yourself against some imagined, impossible standard and found yourself wanting, how could you appreciate your own accomplishments? Thinking back, Hermione never seemed to savor her achievements. She was always constantly picking at her work, finding nonexistent flaws and tearing herself apart until she was a bundle of anxiety. Harry, Ron, and the others had shrugged in exasperation at Hermione's behavior because studying and homework was never so important to them, but to Hermione these things were so much more than a chore or another assignment. She saw her progress at Hogwarts as one of the only ways she could improve her situation and not only survive, but thrive in the wizarding world – a world she was thrust into entirely unprepared, a world that did not make many allowances for those like her.

Sitting in the car on the ride back home, Harry resolved to become more observant in the future. If his friend was pushing herself too hard and struggling, he would be there to help. He didn't know what he would do at that point and he didn't know if it was even in his power to help, but he had to try.

Hermione was one of his friends. And he would never take any of his friends for granted.

Back at home, Harry and his father were quickly roped into a storm of holiday preparations.

His mother was always the one who got most excited about the holiday season. Their family celebrated both Christmas and Yule, despite being more pagan than anything else, and when he'd once asked her why she had told him:

"Christmas is like that extra sprinkle of spirit and cheer on top of your ice cream. Sure, it's superfluous when you compare it to the real toppings – the fruits, the nuts, the syrups. Sure, it's commercialized and overrated and an excuse to spend more on frivolous things. Sure, it's not _needed_ , but it makes you happy, so why not?"

'It makes you happy, so why not?' was his mother's attitude towards most things, he thought, smiling to himself.

The outside of the house was decked out in true Muggle fashion, with a wreath at the door, twinkling lights, and a little family of animatronic deer with a stag, a doe, and a fawn, frolicking in the front yard.

His father had drawn the line when his mother had made eyes at a maniacally waving Santa, however.

"No one's going to see it," he'd said, crossing his arms and eyeing the waving animatronic with distaste. Living on a wooded hill discouraged most neighbors and neighborly competition was, to his mind, the whole point of exterior home decor.

"They will if we get the giant, lit-up version!" she'd exclaimed.

They had the same argument every year and it always ended the same way: his father calmly leading them out of the store with hands at both their backs and his mother regretfully calling back to the larger, absurdly festive decorations with a promise of "Next year!"

They were now trimming their tree, which was the perfect height and width for their spacious, but still, cozy living room, if Harry did say so himself. (He would know, since he was the one to painstakingly pick it out.)

His father had already cast the tree topper charm and the ball of soft, golden light at the top of the tree shone like a miniature star.

His mother was spinning a smaller ball of candy-apple red glass at the end of her wand. Once the ball was perfectly round, she detached it from the tip and made an ornate hoop at the top with a twist of her wrist.

"You should give it a try," she said, once she saw him watching. "It's easy and you can get pretty fancy once you've gotten the hang of it."

His mother held his hand and guided him through the wand movements. The end result was a little lopsided, more egg shaped than truly spherical, but he beamed with pride nonetheless.

His father came up behind them and he watched with bated breath as his father held the red glass up to the light. "Now this is a keeper," the man said finally, and Harry flushed with pleasure as his father cast a preservation charm.

His mother winked at him. Most of the ornaments disappeared on their own when Christmas ended, but it looked like he had just made a new addition to their permanent collection of Christmas decorations.

His father handed the bauble back and Harry hung it on the tree happily.

In the days that followed, Harry occupied himself with getting gifts for his new friends.

He had his father help him make a snowglobe with little Quidditch players inside modeled after Ron's favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons. When shaken, the Quidditch players would whirr around furiously, but when left undisturbed they would just fly around, manning their positions.

For Neville's gift, he had asked his mother for some of the more unique seeds from her greenhouse and owl ordered a plain wooden box with seven compartments. Labeling each compartment with the name of each seed, he included a little card with a picture of the mature plant and its properties.

Hermione would be getting a copy of some of his father's earlier publications along with his father's accompanying notes. His mother had teasingly suggested he bind the notes into a pretty journal to make up for the lack of creativeness, but he took the suggestion to heart and did just that. Picking out a patterned fabric from his mother's crafting supplies, he had his mother teach him how to stitch the pages together and how to use the fabric and a piece of board to create the cover. The final product looked quite nice, considering it was his first time bookbinding.

Draco's present was a bit harder, not least because he had to first explain his friendship with the Malfoy heir to his unwitting parents.

"We are talking about the same boy, right?" his mother asked, frowning in disbelief. "The one that was so rude and snooty in the robe shop?"

"He's really nice when you get to know him, Mum," Harry said firmly. "And he can't help being a bit of a snob. His parents drill that into him before he can even dream about expressing an opinion of his own."

"I still don't like it."

His father gave her a quelling look. "Now, now, we should give the boy a chance." He clasped Harry's shoulder supportively. "I'm sure our son is the better judge of his friend's character."

"You're just glad he has a friend from your old House," she accused.

"That too," his father smirked.

"Well, I hope you get used to the idea soon, Mum..." Harry toed the floor nervously. "Because Draco's parents have invited us to their Yule Ball."

They both turned away from each other to stare at him, eyes wide with surprise.

The formal invitations to the Malfoy Yule Ball had arrived a week into the break, but Harry had hidden them until he could broach the topic of the Malfoys with his parents first. He received a lecture for not informing them of something so important sooner, but his mother was suddenly much more accepting of his friendship with Draco. She'd spent the last couple of days getting things ready, everything from their outfits to their guest gifts. Harry didn't think they had to give the older Malfoys anything, since the invitation was so short notice and they weren't even properly acquainted, but his mother reminded him that guest gifts were an important pureblood tradition – one that the Reeds would be wise to follow.

When invited to a social gathering by a pureblood family, it is appropriate to bring a gift, one of commensurate value to the relationship you share with that family. Since the only connection between the Reeds and the Malfoys was the friendship between their two sons, his mother had to choose carefully, for the Malfoys would judge whether Harry was a suitable playmate for their son based on the quality and thoughtfulness of their gift. Harry was unaware of the weight this gift would carry, but that was fine. It was enough that his mother knew, and that is why she had decided to gift the Malfoys a bush of her glass roses.

Glass roses were a magical type of rose made of a living glass. The bushes, stems, leaves, and seeds of the plant were organic, but the flowers themselves were pure glass. The colors vary depending on the breed but the most coveted glass roses were those with a high clarity to showcase the transparency of the glass. The roses drop off the plant eventually and breeders leave cushioned tarps underneath the plant to catch the crystal flowers before they shattered. The flowers are unique to the touch, and you could never mistake a rose of carved glass for a glass rose, for the petals of a glass rose are as thin and delicate as actual rose petals.

Glass roses were incredibly rare since the process to breed them required enough understanding of advanced inorganic to organic transfiguration theory to coax a plant to produce glass flowers. After that, you'd have to performs hundreds of thousands of crosses over a number of years before a suitable grade 1 rose would appear. And even then you'd have to wait to see if that rose would propagate and make more grade 1 glass roses. The Murano and Vetreria Gardens in Italy were home to the largest glass rose breeding programs in the world, but not many have been able to replicate their success.

Harriet had gifted the Malfoys with her ice blue roses, ones she'd bred specifically since no other breeder had managed to achieve such a clear, intense shade of blue. The color would symbolize the calmness her family would bring to their meeting and the conservatism in which they would approach a relationship with the Malfoys. The transparency of the rose would also tell the Malfoys that the Reeds would meet them with honest intentions and that they had nothing to hide.

The rarity and expense of the roses was such that no one could deny it was a worthy gift, though some might argue it was a bit forward, even presumptuous, of the no-name Reeds to gift the Malfoys with something so personal, seeing as the bush was the product of many years of Harriet's dedication and skill. Harriet knew it was a risk that would pay off, however. The Malfoys' had always had a weakness for beautiful and rare things. And this would also prove that the Reeds were a magically powerful family that was well aware of their position in the wizarding world but not resigned to it.

If you were to meet a pureblood family on their playing field, you'd have to play by their rules. Tom may have taught Harriet most of these rules, but he had taught her with the expectation that she would use them to her advantage.

These social-political nuances all flew over Harry's head however, as he was more concerned with his preparations for Draco's gift.

In the end, he decided to give his friend a two part gift; a book of origami techniques and a paper dragon.

The dragon was the size of a large lizard, almost as long as Harry's arm, and was definitely his most difficult paper creation to date. He had chosen a thicker gold paper and had written all over it in tiny runes to help the dragon be more magically self-sufficient than his other paper creatures. He would fuel his creation with an initial burst of magic when he imbued it for the first time with its purpose and some of Draco's magic was obviously going to be absorbed once the boy keyed the dragon to his magical signature, but the dragon would also use ambient magical energy to supplement its stores. He did not know how long his creation would last, but by giving the dragon a recirculating and adaptable magical energy system he hoped his gift would endure for several more years.

His father had been most intrigued by the idea, and had asked Harry to try to measure how many MEUs the dragon would require to function. Harry had only groaned. He was struggling enough with making the darned thing, did he have to worry about recording, organizing, and analyzing data too?

After he'd answered the question of where and how the dragon would get its power, he focused on inscribing the paper with even more runes. These runes would strengthen the joints, preserve the paper against water and heat damage, and most importantly, enable the dragon to fly. His parents helped him with that last part, as he did not have nearly enough knowledge in the areas of physics and magical aerodynamics.

After getting all the rune work done, and using a multitude of paper crafting techniques to fold, mold, and cut the different parts of the dragon, he painstakingly put it together, piece by piece. When everything was over, Harry could only gaze at his final creation with weary eyes and a proud smile before keeling over on his work table and making a pillow of his ink-stained paper scraps.

"He really went all out." Harry brushed some hair away from Harrison's face and the boy wrinkled his nose before murmuring sleepily. Harry glanced at Tom with a sigh. "I just hope it's all worth it."

Tom picked up a sheaf of Harrison's notes and replied, "Just because you had an unfortunate experience with the Malfoy boy doesn't mean Harrison has to." He looked up from some messily scrawled figures and reminded Harry, "He's not you, after all."

And that was the rub wasn't it? If his son was not him – not the freak under the stairs, not the chosen one, not the boy who lived to die – no, Harrison would never be him, they'd made sure of it – then Harry had to accept his son was free to make his own choices. Even if he chose to befriend someone like Malfoy.

"It's strange," Harry said finally. "I'm fine with Ron and Hermione. I even faced Dumbledore and Sirius without a problem." He shook his head in disbelief. "But I just can't seem to shake this thing I have for Malfoy."

"Perhaps you're fine with the other figures of your past because you don't perceive them as threats."

Harry laughed darkly. "So you're saying I'm more afraid of Malfoy than I am of Dumbledore."

Tom put down the papers and moved to where Harry was standing over their son. "I'm saying that some part of you still trusts Dumbledore and your friends to never hurt you." He brought his arms underneath Harrison carefully, and lifted the boy up until his head lolled against Tom's shoulder.

They waited a moment but Harrison slept on, oblivious, nuzzling his cold nose into the warm hollow underneath his father's chin. Tom continued then, voice soft as to not disturb his precious new burden. "That same part of you obviously expects Malfoy to hurt your son."

Was that it? Gazing at Harrison's face, such a curious blend of his and Tom's features, he wondered at the power of a mother's love, to make him fear more than he had ever feared for his own life.

Harry stepped closer and leaned his head against Tom's free shoulder. Pressing his face into the wool material of Tom's robe, he muttered, "I think you're right."

They stood there and didn't move for a long time.

* * *

 **Author's Note: Had this chapter already uploaded on AO3 for a year but forgot to upload it on ffnet. I'm working on the next chapter, I promise.**

 **On another note, for new readers, the AO3 version has art I've made for this story so check that out if you're interested. My name on AO3 is Felled_and_Fallen.**


	15. Chapter 15

What Confidence Can Buy You

* * *

Harry's father had always wanted to renovate the roof into a private owlery.

"What would be the point?" his mother had said. "We don't even have owls."

This was true. The only bird his family owned was his father's crow, Morrigan. When Morrigan was out delivering something for his father, his mother would just head to Diagon and use the courier service owls.

"Fine, we'll have an _aviary_ instead."

His mother had only given his father an unimpressed look. Building an unneeded owlery, or an _aviary_ as her husband so helpfully clarified, just for the sake of owning one was the height of wasteful extravagance, in her opinion.

This event had confused Harry for some time. His father had always been a practical man. Sure, he may demand quality and excellence out of every aspect of his life but at his core, effective, _efficient_ results were what mattered. And his mother had always been the parent more prone to excess, so the idea that she would stand firm against his father over the issue of money – which had never been much of an issue for his family, to be honest – was strange.

It was only when Harry grew a little older that he realized money had never been the issue.

A private owlery was not just a symbol of financial status, it was a symbol that declared to all that the Reed family was a family of _wizards._ His father saw it as a point of pride to own anything that was a fixture of wizarding life, as if he was compensating for his family's Muggle ties.

His mother didn't – no, couldn't, _wouldn't_ – understand. She may have learned all the words, all the rituals, all the customs that respected and called on the Magic, wholeheartedly – she may even have learned the ones that made no sense _at all_ , for the sake of navigating the traps of pureblood society – but she would _never_ be a pureblood. She was unapologetic about her blood, about the woman she was, and utterly disdainful of any attempt to compromise herself in order to appeal to "bloody purebloods who had their noses so far up each other's arses, all they could taste was the shit of their own hypocrisy."

Harry is reminded of this argument every time he goes up to the roof and visits Morrigan's comfy, little enclosure, but his thoughts are currently far more occupied by the fact that, unlike all the other times, he now actually has letters and parcels to send off.

His happy whistling makes Morrigan pop her head out of her window and, at the sight of him, the rest of her body follows. He stretches out an arm for her to perch on and grunts a little at her weight. "Has mum been spoiling you while I was gone?" he says, eyeing the curve of her belly, which is more pronounced than he remembers. Morrigan flaps her wings in indignation and he laughs again before he sets her down next to his bag of gifts.

He decides to send Neville and Hermione their gifts first and secures one to each of Morrigan's feet. He'll send Ron his when Morrigan returns since she'd have to go all the way to Scotland, and he leaves Draco's out since he'll be delivering his gift personally at the Malfoy's ball.

The thought of the ball makes Harry wilt a little bit. He pats Morrigan one last time and she spreads her wings and takes off with a great cry. He gives her shrinking figure a wave before heading back downstairs.

It's still early, so he goes to the kitchen. His mother is there cooking breakfast, singing along to the crooning voice of Celestina Warbeck on the Wireless.

He takes a seat at the kitchen table, shaking out the bits of snow in his hair.

His mother pauses in her singing long enough to sigh, "I really wish you would bundle up more when you go out." She taps the kettle and it gives a high whistle before pouring itself into a tea-bag filled mug. When it's done, she walks over to place the mug in front of him.

Harry wraps his hands around the mug to warm himself up and gives his mother a grateful little smile. "I swear, I always plan to, but before I know it I'm out the door."

His father comes in just as he says this and laughs. "Just like someone else I know," he says as he sits down.

His mother sniffs before turning back to the stove.

Harry hides his giggles behind the curve of his mug as he takes a sip.

"So you delivered your gifts, then?" his father asks absentmindedly, digging through some of the mail on the table.

"Yep." Harry hands him the Daily Prophet. "Just now."

His father accepts the newspaper with a murmured thanks and Harry watches as his head disappears behind it.

"Well, with the amount of effort you put into those presents, I'm sure they'll love them," his mother says as she plates up their breakfast.

"I hope so," Harry says and takes one plate as it nudges at him. There's two sunny side up eggs, a little pool of beans, and strips of bacon there to make a little face, grinning up at him encouragingly. He grins back before slicing one of the eggs with the back of his fork to watch the yolk run.

"So what are our plans for today?" his mother asks, pouring out two cups of coffee.

His father accepts his with a nod, folding the Daily Prophet and picking up one of the other newspapers on the table. French, judging by the flash of the French minister Harry could see on the cover. "The review board has approved of my last revisions, so I'll be free for a while yet. At least until after the journal comes out." He smirks. "Then I'll have to deal with the public's reception of my research."

Harry and his mother share a laugh. It wouldn't be the first time his father's work was met with outrage.

"What about you, Harry?" his mother asks, spreadings some beans on a slice of toast.

Harry hums. "I only have a little more of my homework to finish, but other than that, nothing."

"Perfect!" His mother claps her hands. "I've finished talking with Capello about our dress robe designs, so let's head over to get our measurements done."

Harry's fork pauses in mid air and his father is suspiciously silent behind his newspaper.

His parents had never been the idle type, even with a toddler on their hands. As proof, in one of their albums there's a photo of them rappelling down a rocky cliff face, Harry strapped onto his mother's back, as she posed next to a confused family of augureys and his father diligently collected samples from the nest.

Unexpectedly, it was his scatterbrained mother who was most concerned about documenting and organizing these moments. Every photo is carefully labeled with the spiky letters of his mother's chicken scratch.

 _Harry (age 2) eating peas._

 _Tom and Harry (ages 27 and 4) taking a nap._

 _Tom, Harriet, and Harry (ages 26, 22, and 3) with the augureys on Mt. Divis_

There are no photos of his mother pregnant and there aren't many photos of his parents before they had him. One of the few is a photo of his parents receiving a trophy for winning an international pair dueling tournament.

His parents are as poised and attractive as ever, but what really stands out are their robes. There are plates of actual armor on the shoulders, like the burnished scales of a dragon, and all along the arms are armored glove-like sleeves, that seemed to draw inspiration from the _kote_ arm guards of Japanese samurai. His father is cast in gleaming silver and his mother is resplendent in gold. The rest of the robes are conventional cloth but exquisitely embroidered with the same metal as the armor. It should have looked overdone and gaudy, but all he could see was his father oozing with lethal grace and his mother glowing with a more feral, otherworldly power.

It was that tournament that sparked Capello's friendship with his family. The woman had been an undervalued apprentice for a moderately successful Italian designer, but after his parents wore her creations to the award ceremony, she became so sought after that she launched her own brand.

They floo to Capello's receiving room and are surprised to see it already occupied.

Seated at one of the sumptuous settees flush against the wall is Blaise Zabini. Harry and Zabini stare at each other, nonplussed, before the woman beside Zabini asks mildly, "A friend from school, Blaise?"

"He's just another first year, mother," Zabini replies, before specifying, "from Gryffindor."

Harry doesn't detect any antagonism in his tone, but from what he remembers from seeing Zabini in class, the boy was never as hostile as the other Slytherins.

His parents step out of Capello's floo pointedly and Harry flushes as he follows them. Staring while standing ankle-deep in soot was not going to leave the most flattering of impressions.

The Reeds take a seat on the opposite settee and the uncomfortable silence is broken by a near silent _pop_. A female house elf stands primly in front of them in a rose colored shift just simple enough not to qualify as clothing, but with all the marks of a uniform.

"Mistress will be-" The house elf cuts herself off with a squeak. "Mrs. Reed!" Her enormous blue eyes bulge out even more. "Mr. Reed and the young master, too!" She immediately summons another house elf. "Tell the Mistress that the Reeds are here."

"Oh, no need to go to any trouble Isa," Mrs. Reed protests.

"It is being no trouble at all, Mrs. Reed," says Isa firmly. "If the Mistress knew Isa is leaving the Reeds waiting, she would be most upset."

His mother looks uncomfortable but doesn't protest further. His father had, of course, accepted this preferential treatment as their due and hadn't moved from his calm, seated position during the entire exchange.

Zabini's mother folds her arms and drawls, her low, honeyed voice now a little sharp, "If Madame Capello has pressing engagements, she might have mentioned when I scheduled my appointment."

The house elf wrings her tiny hands in distress. "Mrs. Zabini, we is being most sorry but we will, of course, complete your order as scheduled-"

"What my elf is trying to say, is that my time is very valuable."

An imposing blonde woman strides in on impossibly high stilettos, the heels looking like they were taken from the pointed teeth of some deadly sea creature. A small fleet of female house elves trails behind her, harried expressions on their faces.

The woman, Capello herself, stops in front of them and addresses the Zabinis with a thin smile. "Your contract stipulates that an appointment may be postponed or canceled at _any_ time, for _any_ reason." Capello raises a fine brow. "If you are unhappy with those terms, you might have mentioned as you signed."

Zabini's mother stands up, her beautifully made up eyes twitching. "We will reschedule our appointment, then." She gives the Reeds a slow nod and then sweeps her son into the floo. They disappear into the emerald flames and the final hiss seems like it's the hiss of her displeasure.

"No need to drive away customers on our account," his mother says ruefully.

Capello waves the reproach away with a bejeweled hand. "What "drive away"? Didn't you hear her, she's going to reschedule." She spots Harry and gives the boy a wink. "You'll find that the public is willing to tolerate much as long as one is uniquely talented."

"Still, I should have owled you," his mother sighed.

"The only one who seems troubled by this is you," his father says. "If she says it's fine, then trust the woman to know her own business." He smiles at Capello. "Thank you for always treating our family so kindly."

"See, Harriet? Your husband understands how this works." Capello waves them through the receiving room into an elegantly decorated corridor. Hanging from the walls are paintings filled with beautiful men and women modeling her designs. "If you let these types of people disrespect you, you'll always be subject to their criticism. An artist must prize their work and their time very highly." She leads them into a large, open space filled with light. "Only then can they truly _create_."

Harry stares at the studio in wonder. There are racks and racks of unfinished pieces, each more fantastical than the next, and the tables are littered with designs drawn boldly on sheets of parchment. Everything is a riot of colors, patterns, and textures. Running around are at least a dozen female house elves, presumably of a higher rank than the elf who greeted them, judging by how they were trusted with such important tasks as cutting fabric and pattern pieces.

They are seated on soft benches and served refreshments by the elves. Capello instructs two others to bring over a few scrolls. "Now, I've taken Harriet's vision and made it my own, but look these over and tell me if you'd like to make any changes."

Harry unrolls the scroll handed to him and sees a magically animated drawing of a boy. The boy is left faceless and uncolored, drawing your eye to the vividly rendered robes he's wearing. The outer robes are a deep bronze trimmed with gold, with a deep vee, while the inner robes are black, high-necked, and long sleeved. The outer robes open in front to reveal trousers and heeled boots. Harry vaguely remembers that in pureblood society, a boy starts to wear heeled shoes once he reaches Hogwarts age as a right of passage.

His mother sees his uncertainty and says, "Capello doesn't make shoes but she does contract out to a very reputable cordwainer."

Harry gives a vague sound of acknowledgement.

"This ball is essentially your debut into society. Whatever your mother might have told you…" His father and mother share a loaded glance before his mother looks away. His father continues, "you must pick and choose your battles. Some of the purebloods will see you following the customs as a boy imitating his betters, hiding the mud of his blood with gilt, and others will give you more consideration than they would have otherwise."

His mother gives him an assuring pat on the shoulder. "If they're bound to dislike you either way, choose the option that annoys them the most," she jokes.

"Not...exactly what I meant."

"Well, that was all I took from it."

"Well," Capello interrupts with an amused look, "is there anything you'd like to change or shall we move on to taking your measurements?"

When Harry gets home he's more conflicted about the Malfoy ball than ever.

He knows what his mother wants him to do. She wants him to be himself and to not feel pressured into believing that there's anything wrong with who he is. She can dance with the purebloods on their playing field, attack using their weapons, but she fears Harry's too young, too inexperienced, to do the same without internalizing some of those toxic ideas.

His father thinks differently.

His father wants him to take what he's learned about pureblood culture and apply it in a real world setting. It's easy to be confident about how you would behave when presented with a hypothetical scenario, but real life opponents are never so easily conquered. He believes that Harry is ready to face the challenges his heritage will bring him. Even if he fails, he will have his family there to protect him. To his father, the Malfoy Ball is the perfect, controlled environment to test his son's ability.

Harry questions the amount of "control" his father will have, but admittedly, his father has never yet failed to turn a situation to his advantage.

But what does _he_ want to do?

All Harry really wants is to see his friend. He doesn't want to disappoint his parents of course, but to him, all this talk of reputation and society and staying true to your identity just makes his head spin.

The one difference between him and his parents is that his parents live for confrontation. Or more precisely, they have always been able to meet confrontation head on and come out the other side stronger than before.

His father is so confident in his own abilities that he takes any threat as an opportunity to demonstrate his superiority. Harry winces at his uncharitable observation but knows his father would forgive, even approve, of such insight into his character. His father had always appreciated truth over sentiment.

His mother does not suffer from a superiority complex, but she has never been one to let an attack go unanswered. She would not stand idly by and let herself become a victim to someone else's schemes. She obviously believed in the philosophy that "a good offense is the best defense."

But Harry didn't want to fight anyone. He just wanted to live happily and freely. He had spent so long yearning for companionship that he wanted to bask in that uncomplicated joy for a little longer.

Thinking about his friends, however, steels his nerves and strengthens his resolve.

Harry takes a deep breath. He'll take things one situation at a time and decide what to do from there.

How could he stand up for his friends if he couldn't first stand up for himself?


End file.
